Also, for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, weather/emergency radio in the US, run by NOAA, is FM on a different VHF band between 162.4 MHz and 162.55 M

Also, for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, weather/emergency radio in the US, run by NOAA, is FM on a different VHF band between 162.4 MHz and 162.55 MHz, which most run-of-the-mill receivers don't tune. To be emergency-prepared in the US, you are wise to own such a weather band radio, a lot of which come with built-in hand-crank dynamos, flashlights, and other features useful in a dicey situation. However, this development does segregate the most useful set of government-run emergency functionality away from ordinary consumer devices and into a special product category.