On Feb. 22, 1998, an outbreak of strong and deadly tornadoes roared through Central Florida. One of the biggest problems is that they moved through between 11 p.m. and 2:30 a.m.

Most people were sleeping and back then, weather radios were one of the only ways to get alerted when you were in bed with the television off.

But that was then — this is now. Technology has since made major advances.

From social media to mobile alerts, you can get warnings in the palm of your hand.

Let’s start with our website mynews13.com. You can get the latest conditions, StormTracker13, and forecasts. You can also sign up for potentially lifesaving alerts.

These come as text alerts to you. You can sign up for county-specific alerts for floods, watches and warnings, storms, all those things. So we offer updates on a variety of platforms for everyone.

Those other platforms, in many cases, are cell phones.

So if you go to mynews13.com/appcenter, you’re going to find downloads for two apps. The first is the Spectrum News app, where you can get live streaming of News 13 right on your phone or other mobile device. That way you can tune in no matter where you are and get the latest on local weather.

So the key thing here is that you can keep us on during severe weather coverage even if your power goes out. That is why we stress keeping your phones charged before storms hit. The other app is our Spectrum News13 app.

You can get current conditions and forecasts, radar, as well as sign up for Safe-T Net alerts where you can get lightning updates which I think are super cool.

Seconds count when you are dealing with storms in Florida. Most of the time, our tornadoes are very short lived, which makes it so important to keep track of any strong storms with rotation, especially during the summer when people are doing outdoor activities. Timely alerts are needed to get to a safe shelter.