I'm not sure how anyone in the tornado belt wouldn't think they are helpful.

Yep, definitely relevant and always attention paid!

Our county activates the sirens for both severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings with no difference in the alerts, just the constant wail continuously while the threat is active.

Our local radio station will continue with its regular programming despite a “live” human as the radio host. I no longer even turn on that station during any event.

The last tornado outbreak of a couple weeks ago I had to turn on the scanner app on my phone and turn on the TV to a Detroit station for updates. While funnels can form anywhere in the warning area it’s helpful to know if you have a few minutes to prepare vs.the SHTF right now. A warning twenty five miles away (far end of the county) moving away from us has less relevance than one bearing directly at one’s location.

The only thing I would feel would be helpful is a difference in the alert tones for thunderstorm and tornado warnings.

We have had a tornado in each of the last three years come within 1 mile of our house. The tornado siren is another mile from that and have never heard it in my life besides one day they were testing it. I guess it would help but you need to have someone that actually runs it.

Not everyone has a smart phone, some people turn off the warnings on them, since it's no fun getting the silver alert at 11 pm, not sure that turns off sever weather alerts though.

If they are properly used it doesn't hurt to have them as an alert backup system to phones and television alerts, the more the better.

Even with alerts the intensity of some EF-4 or EF-5 tornados there are people who will suffer catastrophic damage and be injured or killed, hopefully all those systems combined reduce the potential...

In addition to local coverage, I've leaned a lot lately on Ryan Hall, Y'all YT channel. He and his team do a pretty good job of getting general details to public.

The situation shovelhead describes is just a stupid of a good tool.

Here they go off literally every time it rains. They are really over used to the point when they go off, they are largely ignored.

Overwhelmingly after a large tornado hit the area in 2021, most people in the path stated that they ignored the alerts because we get alerts constantly. We have news agencies that push weather fear porn constantly. We’ve had three so called “generational”
Severe weather threats 4/5 or 5/5 alerts already this year. One produced a small tornado, the other two just rained.

They are over used and weather guessers need to stop with the constant posting on social media “I usually don’t post stuff like this……..”. Horseshit, Noah, you posted the same thing last Monday.

Without sirens I guess the hearing impaired are SOL.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Not everyone has a smart phone, some people turn off the warnings on them, since it's no fun getting the silver alert at 11 pm, not sure that turns off sever weather alerts though.

If they are properly used it doesn't hurt to have them as an alert backup system to phones and television alerts, the more the better.

Even with alerts the intensity of some EF-4 or EF-5 tornados there are people who will suffer catastrophic damage and be injured or killed, hopefully all those systems combined reduce the potential...

Yeah HRK, and many of us have a smart phone (I’m required to have one for my vocation) but don’t have it up our arse. My life doesn’t not revolve around the phone so it’s often left on the charger, at home. Even when home many times it’s in another room, the opposite side of the house or I’m outside working around the house on something. #phonelife is not an affliction I have. To me life is better spent with that thing minimized to the maximum I can get away with and I think our society was better off without everyone on a PC 24/7.

Every single day at 1200 and 2100. Lunch and curfew siren, most of the other small towns had the same.

Growing up it was also used to call volunteer firefighters. At some point that job went to pagers.

They are still useful, I believe they should be utilized as the very highest level though. If you hear that siren a tornado or nuclear power plant has been un leashed in the immediate area and you have just a couple minutes to save your ass. The phone and public media have been warning you for a half hour or longer.

We had a tornado just over a year ago and I’ve lived in Temple for six years. We got noticed because I was looking outside and the sirens went off. Neither my phone nor Mrs. Mikes phones went off-we do have NC phone numbers.

I've only ever heard one once.
Was visiting friends at Ole Miss in Oxford MS

Middle of the night, woke me up, their response was 'don't worry about it'

Lived in Oklahoma City for the past 17 years. They test every Saturday at Noon.

You might not think it, but Oklahoma City is one of the largest cities in the United States, it is 600 square miles. 15 years ago sirens would go off at 3:00am, you'd get up turn on the TV see the weatherman going nuclear about a hook echo 40 or 50 miles away, get mad that they woke you up for nothing and go back to bed. At the time there was only one alarm button for the whole city.

Somewhere 8 to 10 years ago they subdivided the alarm system into 8 grids and if it goes off now it is for real and you need to be paying attention. Okies don't get too worked up for bad weather unless it is right on top of them, but nowadays if the siren goes off you should pay attention.

You hear about OKC and tornadoes regularly, but really it's the suburb of Moore on the south side that gets hit the most. If the sirens go off in Moore, an F5 is about to take out a school and level 10 city blocks.

My city just recently replaced and added new sirens.
When they go off they tell you what the emergency is.

They stressed throughout the process that they are intended for people who are outside and not for the people inside homes and businesses..

They get tested twice a month at noon on Wendsday as long and the weather is good.

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:
Our county activates the sirens for both severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings with no difference in the alerts...

It's similar in my city, the siren sounds for high winds or tornados. I would prefer two different alerts but what do I know.

It's tested every Tuesday at 10AM.

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:
Just my opinion but I think all warning systems are over used.

I live in a gated community with eighteen an nine hole courses.
We have an old civil defense siren that is used to clear the golfers off the course when lightning is in the area.

I also live a rock throw outside the ten mile ring of Comanche Peak Nuclear plant so there is another system that is tested at noon of the first Monday of the month which I think would also be used for Tornado but have never heard it used for weather even though we have had tornados on the ground destroying homes over the years.

So are you in Stephenville, Hico, or Meridian? My brother-in-law lives down that way and has similar experiences from May to late July…

Our county uses them appropriately and they have woken my family from sleep in the middle of the night for good reason. Has a tornado hit my house, no. Being awake and monitoring rotations and on the ground tornadoes is worth the inconvenience of being awakened. Ours are close enough to hear with the windows shut.

quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:
As a slight divergence from my original topic:

When I was a kid they used to sound the sirens in Washington, MO every time the volunteer fire department was called out. One whirl for in-town call and two for out-of-town. Everyone jumped in their pickups and turned on their red dash lights and the town knew to turn on their scanners to listen to the action.

In the 1990s they upgraded to a new Whelen system and the volume was probably 2-3 times as loud and as the town grew the callouts increased and people complained so they stopped activating them other than weather and every Sunday at noon. When they first got them, they tried out each available tone on subsequent months and quickly realized nobody could understand the spoken recording.

Washington no longer has them, but they had gotten Whelen to make some special Westminster tone for them.

[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c9Y7FtC7GnQ" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

I want one. I don't know why but I like that sound.

Trans CEMA Director Suspended After Failure To Alert St. Louis Residents Of Deadly Tornado

https://www.zerohedge.com/poli...dents-deadly-tornado

The head of the City Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) in St. Louis has been suspended pending an investigation into into why tornado sirens did not sound before an EF-3 tornado hit parts of Central West End and North City last week. A physical button must be pushed by officials at the CEMA office in order to activate warning sirens; this was never done. Five people died when the storm struck.

Sarah Russell, (a biological woman) who identifies as transgender and goes by they/them pronouns, was promoted to the CEMA leadership position in 2022 in the midst of the widespread DEI hiring blitz within Democrat run cities across the US. CEMA is a local partner organization to FEMA.

CEMA staff, including Russell, were at a workshop on Market Street and not at the CEMA office located on Olive, where the siren activation button is located. The Mayor's office said Russell contacted the fire department, apparently at the time the tornado was approaching the city. City officials say there was then a breakdown in communication, with the directive to activate the sirens being vague.

Why didn't Russel go to the office to set off the alarm herself? This is not known but the two locations are approximately four blocks away - A very short distance.

In April of 2024, Russell's office received a $3.9 million grant to improve the siren system in St. Louis which she said needed to be updated. This included adding multiple languages to alarm PSAs, such as Spanish, Vietnamese, Hindi, Swahili, Bosnian and Dari/Patscho. However, no amount of siren improvements will matter if no one is there to push the button.

St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer has placed Sarah Russell on leave, stating at a press conference:

“Let me be clear: CEMA exists to alert the community when severe weather is coming. This office failed to do that in the most horrific and deadly storm that our city has experienced in my lifetime..."



The investigation will look into why the CEMA staff, including Russell, were not in the office when the storms were anticipated. CEMA will be temporarily led by St. Louis Fire Department Capt. John Walk until a permanent replacement is found.



https://www.humansofpublicserv.../story/sarah-russell

I had been working in the brewing industry for 10 years, but found myself abruptly unemployed and starting my career over.

I lived through the events of 9/11 and saw the large scale of response and recovery. I also saw the different ways my family members had served the public, from being in the military to doing missionary work abroad. Those things helped to steer me into my current path of service.

Today, after 12 years with the agency, I am the Commissioner of Emergency Management for the City of St. Louis, MO. CEMA is responsible for leading a program of prevention, preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation for the city. A highlight of my career has been launching the NotifySTL mass notification system in the city. I worked to find the best tool that would bring us to a whole new level of communication. It was such a fulfilling feeling to be able to showcase it and present it to the community. Emergency communication is so important in everything we do, and this was really an incredible moment.

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quote:

Originally posted by snoris:

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:
Just my opinion but I think all warning systems are over used.

I live in a gated community with eighteen an nine hole courses.
We have an old civil defense siren that is used to clear the golfers off the course when lightning is in the area.

I also live a rock throw outside the ten mile ring of Comanche Peak Nuclear plant so there is another system that is tested at noon of the first Monday of the month which I think would also be used for Tornado but have never heard it used for weather even though we have had tornados on the ground destroying homes over the years.

So are you in Stephenville, Hico, or Meridian? My brother-in-law lives down that way and has similar experiences from May to late July…

I spend 50% of my time in Stephenville. Anytime I'm stuck in traffic you look around and see 5 horse or cattle trailers