This past weekends storms

[Zac Green]

Hey everyone I wanted to ask your friendly advice and tap in to your knowledge. I live in Arkansas while attending college here and as we all know Friday and Saturday were active weather days. Well both days my county and my town was in a tornado warning by the national weather service. The polygon was included for a large chunk of the county and my town. On both days a tornado touched down in the county: Friday near Kensett, about 5 miles, if that from where I live in Searcy. The next day near Rosebud which is about 30 minutes from my town. The tornado sirens never went off either day here in Searcy. Do you think they should have? If so, should I contact the emergency management personnel in my area? I heard rumors that the sirens went off on the East side of town on Friday, but in any event, they did not sound at all at the campus TV studio I was broadcasting from. On another storm on Saturday that was not even Tornado Warned they were sounding the sirens in suburbs of Little Rock 30 minutes ahead of it, so... :/ .Let me know what you think. Thanks everyone in advance.

 

[Dave Marshall]

In many areas they sound the sirens at the discretion of the county EMA manager, usually based on the projected track of the tornado itself, rather than the polygon drawn by the NWS, which can be rather wide. This is especially true if one is on the ground and they're getting info from their local EMS assets. It's quite possible that they didn't sound the sirens because they didn't believe that area to be at risk.

On the other hand, after the thumping Little Rock took Friday night, it wouldn't surprise me if the local EMA authorities were maybe just a *little* on edge, and either set off the sirens out of an abundance of caution/panic, or more likely, they had firefighters or law enforcement that reported seeing a tornado/funnel/etc.

 

[rdale]

It doesn't hurt to ask the EMA director what happened / what his policy is / etc.

 

[Steev Grayson]

You should contact the loc al Emergency Manager to inquire what the policy or SOP is for sounding the Sirens (Outdoor Warning Device). Each City/County/Parish has their own policy and SOP. Might be a good way to help generate interest from the community to assist with the Emergency Operations Plan and let officials know what the community wants and expects.

 

[Rob Herman]

Maybe the sirens malfunctioned.

 

[Joshua Nall]

.... Do you think they should have?......

I have an opinion. If no tornado hit your town then sounds like they made the right decision. For officials that cannot "see" where the possible tornado is and where it is going, then sounding sirens for anyone with in a polygon is the safe thing to do. But, these are false alarms and it leads to inaction among locals. Many times the sirens have sounded here with no threat of a tornado to those within earshot of the sirens. People tune them out when they do not at least see some scary clouds over head, heavy rain, thunder, never hear of a tornado being reported. I suppose this would be topic for another discussion, but I think it would be wonderful if the criteria for issuing were far higher and there were far fewer warnings and the NWS actually missed a few tornadoes now and then, which would happen. Of course then you would have your whiners complaining how the NWS missed one. In the big picture it would cause folks to take them more seriously. Folks hear sirens, see warnings on the TV, and tune them out, because nothing ever directly effects them. Concerning sirens...I remember a recent warning, siren episode here and the possible tornado had already past and was 10 miles away.

 

[Zac Green]

Thanks for all of your replies. Dave and Joshua your opinions really helped. I think they did make the right decision on Saturday since the Tornado went well to the west. Whilst Friday since I was in the studio, I cannot tell if the sirens went off on the east part of town, but if they did the right decision would again have been made. I remember chatting with fellow stormtrack members on one of the nightly chats how locals in the communities get really frustrated for false alarms. When I am back home I live in Burleson, Texas: home of one of the many towns that house the talking sirens. Not only do they talk but they sound them for SEVERE T-STORM WARNINGS. That causes quite a stir among the locals, because everyones used to them being for tornadoes and since severe t-storms are far more frequent, they go off a lot.