Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"We need a digital camera that can be switched on and fire off that first shot fast. It's not a commonly tracked statistic on any review site, and nobody seems to have this information for every camera. We were hoping other readers could inform us as to what small digital cameras can fire off their first pics in under a second (ideally under half a second). It needs to be small, but mostly, just really quick in operation. Thanks!"
An old addage is:
"To be forewarned is to be forearmed".
I'd be happy to see every future car and every internet capable device feature some sort of weather/crisis alert system. It is extremely important furthermore since a portion of analog terrestrial broadcasting is suppossed to be dropped in favor of digital.
As far as the "homeland security warning system goes"...that was something Karl Rove dreamed up to scare Americans. I haven't even heard those words mentioned on the news in months (if not years).
And why have it? We already have DEFCON 5-1 to scare people.
Everytime Brittany Spears or Paris hilton do something stupid, the alert level goes to PINK.