CLAYTON &045; Joyce Green likes to stay informed.

As a matter of fact, she was watching CNN as late as 1 a.m. Sunday as she sat in her bedroom chair, winding down for bed.

But that didn’t prepare her for what came next. With little advance warning, the weather went from bad to worse, and she only hit the floor just in time to hear a tornado peeling off her roof. Though she was watching cable TV, she said, &uot;there was no warning on there.&uot;

It’s a scenario that’s common in small communities throughout the nation. While the bigger cable systems that serve towns such as Natchez, Vidalia, Ferriday and Jonesville are required by the federal government to air severe weather watches and warnings, those serving fewer than 1,000 people aren’t.

&uot;The emergency alert system is mandated by the FCC,&uot; said Josh Holland, coordinator of corporate communications for St. Louis-based Seabridge Communications.

Seabridge is the parent company of the cable systems serving Clayton, the Tensas Parish town of Waterproof and the community of Wallace Ridge north of Jonesville.

&uot;The FCC tells every cable operator they must put on those alerts. But they allow a waiver for systems with 1,000 or fewer customers,&uot; he said.

That’s because it is not economically feasible for smaller systems to install the equipment needed to pick up such an alert &045; equipment Holland said is prohibitively expensive.

While Holland said Seabridge’s cable systems are looking for ways to make it more economically feasible to provide such a service, he added there are no plans to do so in the foreseeable future.

&uot;We’re in compliance with the FCC,&uot; Holland said.

Charter Communications covers Jonesville, Sicily Island and most areas of Concordia Parish

&045; except for Vidalia which, along with Adams County, is served by Cable One. Those systems do have equipment that picks up and broadcasts such alerts on all their stations.

&uot;It’s an automatic system that monitors a radio station and a TV station, and when the alerts come over them it triggers the system&uot; that broadcasts the alert on every Charter channel, said John Hill, technical supervisor at Charter’s Ferriday office. That system has about 3,200 customers.

In addition to cable TV stations, local radio stations also broadcast such alerts.

Meanwhile, people such as Alice White count their blessings. White, who lives just a couple of houses down from Green and whose house had some roof damage from Sunday’s tornado, was also watching cable when the storm hit.

&uot;I just thank God this is all that happened to me,&uot; White said. &uot;I’m blessed.&uot;