The grant could provide quicker emergency alerts to residents. Danville resident Kenny Scott said his town may not be very big, but it is still important. Danville residents said they do not hear siren alerts from Montgomery City five miles away.

Bob Bishop, Director of Montgomery County's Emergency Management, says "in case of emergency, seconds is life"

Scott found his own way to keep up with the weather. He uses a satellite weather system on his TV, and can look at weather conditions by entering his zip code. "I do concrete and I do a lot of outside work, so I have to be up on the weather everyday," he said.

A lot of elderly people live in rural towns like Danville, and Residents say they need a more efficient alert system.

Officials hope to install the Alert FM system with the $250,000 grant. It sends alerts to a user's cell phone, pager or receiver.

"Sirens are usually only in towns, and not in rural areas. So the rural people would benefit from this tremendously," said Bishop.

Alert FM says its system could reach 200 million households in seconds.

If mid-Missouri gets the grant, officials would first install the system in the EPZ area. Their next goal is to spread it out to rural areas, "but it would still be nice because tornadoes do hit small towns," said Scott.

With severe flooding recently and tornado season coming up, Alert FM is one way small communities could get timely alerts.