dead of night wrote:
Hi. I'm reading Daphne Du Maurier's short story "The Birds" right now.
In this story, a family is inside their boarded up house, attacked by
thousands of birds. They tune to their radio and learn that farther
away,in the cities, the population is under attack by hordes of large
birds. These attacks seem to be organized, military, and reasoning.
I'm interested in the radio as a tool of survival in an emergency:
weather, terror, war, epidemic, or alien. What would be some of the
best radios to own as a source of news information and survival in a
time of severe crisis and emergency?

A 2M ham HT can allow you to monitor the severe WX nets.

A VHF/UHF scanner can allow you to monitor fire and police,
though this is starting to change with digital.

MW and HF allow one to listen to local, not so local and international
news. During the civil war in Jorden the only comms were Ham radio.

After Katrina ham radio also helped with the relief efforts.

There have been several times where a ham radio has saved me
from at best serious discomfort to at worst injury or death. I have
been known to go deep into the Red River Gorge during heavy
snow to take photos. One time I had a starter fail. The temps
had dropped to the mid teens more snow was on the way. I was
very happy my ham radio worked and some friends came to retrieve
me. One of the more foolish things I have done as an adult. While
I did have a sleeping bag and food etc, it would have been a very
long and cold night.

Your question is so open ended that it is hard to present a useful
answer. In truth you may want to visit misc.survivialism where topics
like this are debated daily. Of course MS has the largest number
of net nuts on the web so be warned.