This spring has been a heartbreaking year with so many fatal tornadoes. I grew up in the Midwest, so tornado warnings and hunkering down in the basement during tornado season are something I grew up with. But this year seems so much worse. At a little over 1,000 tornadoes so far, this year hasn't had the most tornados in a year yet (the record is 1,817 in 2004 according to the National Weather Service), but with such a high number of deaths, tragic stories and painful levels of destruction there seems to be more national attention and, sadly, fear.

 

Today, while researching for a feature story, I stopped by Vivint's website (www.vivint.com) where I saw it is offering free in-home tornado alerts in multiple states.

 

I don't know what percentage of the industry offers a service like this, but it did strike me as something that would have such an extreme value to many end users across the country. It is an added level of security to make sure a tornado warning isn't missed.

 

Maximizing everything a security system can do — and creating additional meaningful services for end users that enhances the value of security systems' for end users — is always great to see.