[JohnFen]

> alerts that go out to cell phones probably reach more people than radio.

Only if the disaster is mild enough that cell phones still work. And let's not forget that there are enormous areas of the US where there is no reliable (or any) cell service.

I'm just hoping that for disaster communications, nobody is actually deciding to cut some people off just because there aren't enough of them.

[msla]

The only solution is multiple solutions. Commercial radio has a threshold of how small a market can be before it isn't worth it any longer, noncommercial radio (including NOAA weather radio stations) can fill in those gaps but require people to have the receivers handy, and more people carry cell phones than radios nowadays but cell service isn't absolutely everywhere. We can improve each of those individual technologies, but no single technology is going to become the only answer.