OUN WX - Fail?

[Angie Norris]

I think the biggest issue here is the slow response of the EM blowing the sirens. OUN did a great job with the storm considering it went from nothing to SVR in 8 minutes, then from SVR to TOR warned 16 minutes later.
Channel 9 did a good job going wall to wall as soon as the storm went SVR, and did a great job showing the location of the tornado on radar. I was out in the yard of my apartment complex, and the general idea of the lay people was if there's a warning, where are the sirens? I don't know what the policy is for siren use in Cleveland County, but if the EM has to come from home to activate the system, it looks like there needs to be a change in the policy.

 

[Billy Griffin]

Although school is out, I wonder; were there any warnings at the university? There are Summer classes, etc. that still go on. Watching the loop of velocities, it sure looks like the circulation went right over the northern part of the campus.

 

[tommywinning]

I live about a mile to the west of OU, I heard sirens that sounded close enough to be from the campus area, possibly by the 7/11 at Imhoff and Chatauqua, but not exactly sure. By the time they went off, the circulation looked to be east of campus. At that time, we were experiencing easterlies, outflow I assume, so that might have carried the sound from farther away, don't know for sure.

 

[Earl Faubion]

After the storm started to go up I began monitoring the amateur radio weather net. From the time WX5OUN issued the original tornado warning until I heard sirens in the northern part of Cleveland County was less than one minute. I live in southwest Oklahoma County a little over a mile from the county line and I'm guessing those sirens are controlled by OKC rather than Norman, and ironically were for a part of the county not being threatened, but they did sound very quickly after the initial warning by WX5OUN went out.

 

[Matthew E. Engelbrecht]

Although school is out, I wonder; were there any warnings at the university?

As of the time I graduated from OU in 2001, there were no formal methods to notify students or the general public about impending weather danger. There was talk at one point of putting a siren in the housing area to help improve this situation, but i'm not sure if that was ever done. Many Universities are implementing reverse-call systems for active shooter type notifications (e.g. Virgina Tech), and this is one option to use but it can take lots of time to call hundreds, if not thousands, of telephones. Time which they may or may not have (in either case).

Events can develop quickly - had this been someplace far away from the densely packed RDAs in the Oklahoma City metro area, it is possible that it could have gone undetected given the subtle radar signatures on TOKC and KTLX that indicated an event was ongoing. I have every confidence that if they could have gotten the warning out earlier, they would have. And I am equally sure that if the City of Norman could get their sirens activated sooner, they would have.

I see no conspiracy

 

[Angie Norris]

I live on the corner of Hwy 9 and Chataqua (or however you spell it) and it was at least 10 minutes, maybe longer, between the warning at 0324Z and the time the sirens went off. I need to check the time stamp on my video and see what time the sirens went off. We have a very loud siren in that area, as in you can hear it with windows closed and TV on, so there is no missing it. I'm a bit far to hear the campus sirens (about 2 miles south of campus), but they are tested on Fridays along with the city sirens, so I would assume they are tied in to the same system.

 

[David Wagener]

Events can develop quickly - had this been someplace far away from the densely packed RDAs in the Oklahoma City metro area, it is possible that it could have gone undetected given the subtle radar signatures on TOKC and KTLX that indicated an event was ongoing. I have every confidence that if they could have gotten the warning out earlier, they would have. And I am equally sure that if the City of Norman could get their sirens activated sooner, they would have.

I see no conspiracy

Actually I think we need to be clear that the issue is the activation of the outdoor sirens, not the warning from NWS. Timeline was outlined by John earlier in the thread. From talking to folks, the general consensus is the sire activation took place 10:42 PM last night, or roughly 18 minutes after the issuance of the warning by OUN. If we go with the timetable on the LSR from OUN today, and the estimate the the tornado was on the ground for 10 minutes...that would put it at 10:30 to 10:40 PM. OUN gave a 6 minute lead time on the tornado, pretty good job, but the City of Norman didn't activate the sirens until tornado was about to lift. Those that were spotting/chasing it can better adjust the timeline.

Not sure if you actually looked at the data from KTLX, but there wasn't much subtle about it unless you were looking at the very ragged hook on BR. BV, and even GR2AE's NROT product display, showed it pretty clearly starting at 10:20ish...very much so at 10:28.

Again the main issue here is the lag time in the activation of the sirens. Whether we get a response here, or I have a note in with the City to get back to me on Monday, it will be nice to see exactly what the reasoning is. The last TOR warning that included Norman had the same delay of 15-20 minutes from OUN sending it out to the sirens blaring. The time frame sorta screams the procedure for activation either takes too long or or the EM is literally having to go into the office to make it happen. Conspiracy? Not all. Failure in the system? Absolutely. I believe it was the Oklahoman today had a story on the tornado where a guy was outside with his family enjoying the evening and was warning by people calling him over and over again. He then heard the storm coming and got inside before it messed up his fence and trees. My other concern to that effect would be the campers at Lake Thunderbird that don't have a weather radio handy (which they should) and the last line of defense is the outdoor siren system.

OUN did their job...6 minute advanced warning on a rapidly developing storm. Norman flunked in not doing their part until the main even was practically over.

Angie - Yeah, the OU Campus sirens are all tied into the city of Norman.

 

[Chris Nuttall]

As of the time I graduated from OU in 2001, there were no formal methods to notify students or the general public about impending weather danger. There was talk at one point of putting a siren in the housing area to help improve this situation, but i'm not sure if that was ever done.

I don't know if you mean alarms within the buildings, but there are outdoor sirens. In fact, there is one on top of Couch Cafeteria. I remember it going off at least twice in the Spring of 2001 for tornado warnings.

 

[Greg Blumberg]

Sad that I wasn't in Norman to see this event, but I think I'm going to see what I can do about looking at the radar. I've seen a few screenshots from GR2AE and I can say that based on the SRV values, this event was NOT subtle at all. The velocity values represented were the typical close range radar values that correspond with tornadogenesis.

That's pretty sad that they didn't activate the sirens. They test them every Friday! And OU has a very high-tech form of warning their students in event of severe weather for the dorms. It's called a written warning that they tape on the entrance doors to the dorms. Other times I think I've heard the warning over some sort of in-dorm speaker system, but for people not in the dorms to hear the speaker warning, the pen-and-paper approach is used.

 

[tommywinning]

If the campus weather warnings are anything like the other campus emergency warnings (someone carrying a suspicious looking umbrella or yoga mat, or trying to abduct a teacher), then the verdict is still out and we might get it some time this afternoon.

 

[Matthew E. Engelbrecht]

I don't know if you mean alarms within the buildings, but there are outdoor sirens. In fact, there is one on top of Couch Cafeteria. I remember it going off at least twice in the Spring of 2001 for tornado warnings.

That's where they were talking about putting it just before I graduated, so it must have been done right after my departure.

 

[Matthew E. Engelbrecht]

Not sure if you actually looked at the data from KTLX, but there wasn't much subtle about it unless you were looking at the very ragged hook on BR. BV, and even GR2AE's NROT product display, showed it pretty clearly starting at 10:20ish...very much so at 10:28.

I was watching this event in real time on GR2AE from KTLX and GR3 from TOKC. I agree that the features, as they were and where they were, were very easy to detect using radar because of multiple RDAs using varying radar technologies around the Oklahoma City metro area. It's probably my fault for not spelling this out more clearly, but my point was that folks should not rip on the amount of time it took for OUN to put out a warning because if this event were to have taken place 75 nmi away from KTLX, say, out west near Clinton, the tornado warning may not have been out as quickly as it was for a storm in the Oklahoma City metro area for the aforementioned reasons.

Related to the siren activations, each jurisdiction has their own emergency management policy for when to activate outdoor warning sirens. I'm not sure what Norman's is but there will probably be delay in between the warning and the activation of sirens, particularly if the policies dictate that the sirens only be activated when there is an imminent tornado threat to the jurisdiction, which will require human assessment (someone has to get in front of a radar or TV, make an assessment, then make a decision, then execute that decision) of the situation and thus some time delay. This becomes problematic if the event, as it did in this case, rapidly develops over that jurisdiction.

Nothing that requires human interaction and/or intervention will be perfect. Sometimes you are on your own!

 

[David Wagener]

It's probably my fault for not spelling this out more clearly, but my point was that folks should not rip on the amount of time it took for OUN to put out a warning because if this event were to have taken place 75 nmi away from KTLX, say, out west near Clinton, the tornado warning may not have been out as quickly as it was for a storm in the Oklahoma City metro area for the aforementioned reasons.

I don't think anyone was taking any shots at OUN. They seemed to be very on top of things in getting the warning out for as fast as it developed. To the rest of your comment, I think it will be safe to say that there will be an assessment done on the procedure Norman EM follows for siren activation. I think there is both validity to your situation you laid out, as well as others when it comes to timing. Say if the storm is outside the city limits moving towards the city and gets warned. That may be a situation where you wait for visual confirmation. In a situation where the main area of rotation is over the city itself, I think you have to side with caution and blow them as soon as the warning goes out.

If I get any quality feedback from the City and EM's office this week, I'll pass it along unless someone else here populates it first.

 

[Billy Griffin]

I think the earlier comments from Rob might have summed it up best... everyone had been watching and waiting all day; when nothing broke by late PM, maybe the guard was let down a bit.

I can remember a situation I was in years ago, might have been '04 / '05 timeframe, where I was chasing anticipated convection in the Oklahoma panhandle and SW Kansas. Waited all afternoon and a good deal into the evening. Gave up and headed back home. Moments later, while driving back, I began hearing reports of a tornado in Garden City, KS. And if I recall, I think Nick Grillo had some incredible video/photos of it.

Perhaps just a situation of even though daylight is gone, residual instability is still there, and when the cap decides to go, up go the storms.

The only "beef" I would have is the very delayed and inconsistent warnings that went out over the city of Norman - from the city, NOT the NWS.

 

[Payton Gannaway]

It definately wasn't the weather center, as I was watching the gr3 and the warning was posted on there and on NOAA's active watches and warnings more than 10 minutes before the sirens sounded. I live about 1/2 a mile east of campus off boyd so the circulation must have been right north of me. Scary not having a warning with something being there.