Tornado Warning Problems

[rdale]

As much as we talk about tornado emergency and well-drawn polygons -- our info is only as good as the people who relay that to the public... NWS Cleveland issued a Tornado Warning for Lucas County (Toledo) and Ottawa County. The polygon was well drawn east of Toledo, for a storm 16 miles east and moving east. The pathcast said that the tornado will remain over rural areas.

Toledo sounded their sirens.

Several thousand fans at a baseball game were 'attempted' to be herded into a basement. Chrsyler / Jeep plants kept their lines going while their workers wondered if they needed to evacuate.

And the reason was -- it's better to be safe than sorry.

Sheez...

 

[Mark Manchester]

I had a similar situation arise a few years ago when I worked in a factory. Apparently there was a confirmed tornado on the ground about 5 miles to our southwest, but they decided to wait to shelter anyone while the "guard" watched out his window to see if it was coming our way. It ended up moving about a mile to our south, so production was in no way interupted. Ridiculous.

 

[Willie Dines]

You have a very good point there rdale

I would hate to think of how many false alarms that are given out, or how many times that a buisness hasn't taken a warning seriously because of wanting to keep the buisness or production lines going as long and uninterrupted as possible.

I think that the false alarms scenario can be reduced by better training of local spotters, in knowing the difference between low level scud and a funnel/tornado.

As reguards the buisness production scenario during tornado warnings, is simply down to greed and lack of value for human life, the way I see it is, if there's any severe weather in the area, then the safety of other people should always come first, reguardless of what kind of buisness that it is, simply because money can be replaced, but a human life can't.

Due to my location, I've never had these problems at first hand, and so, I am unable to say from experience, but it's just my overall views on it

Willie

 

[rdale]

In this case there is no way the businesses should have shut down - but the employees were worried because they didn't know it was IMPOSSIBLE for the tornado to have impacted them... Plain and simple - the sirens should not have sounded.

 

[Shane Adams]

In this case there is no way the businesses should have shut down - but the employees were worried because they didn't know it was IMPOSSIBLE for the tornado to have impacted them... Plain and simple - the sirens should not have sounded.

At what point do local EMS officials become responsible for verifying their information? I'd hate to think there are still places that just listen for the beep and don't have some type of radar or other means to monitor things themselves in real-time. I know it's not a popular opinion for you, but you can't blame the National Weather Service for everything.

If I had to choose between being inconvenienced and digging through a town like Greensburg, KS looking for survivors who DIDN'T get a warning cause it wasn't a "100% gaurantee" real-deal event, I'd take being inconvenienced every time.

 

[David Wagener]

Rob I know what you mean. I noticed it yesterday and the warning essentially covered the area over by Crane Creek metropark to the Devis Besse nuke plant. There really was no reason for the sirens with in the Toledo city limits to even be sounded as it was moving out over the lake. Its reasons like this why people in that city really don't pay much attention to severe weather warnings. The local media gets a lot of push back about running live weather coverage during any severe event.

 

[rdale]

I know it's not a popular opinion for you, but you can't blame the National Weather Service for everything.

If I had to choose between being inconvenienced and digging through a town like Greensburg, KS looking for survivors who DIDN'T get a warning cause it wasn't a "100% gaurantee" real-deal event, I'd take being inconvenienced every time.

I'm not sure I understand... The cell was 16 miles east of Toledo, the NWS correctly drew the polygon well east of Toledo, the storm was moving east. I'm not sure how you can say the NWS erred in this case, nor do I understand the comparison to Greensburg. Greensburg WAS in the path of the storm, and their sirens were activated. Toledo WASN'T in the path of the storm, COULD NOT be in the path of the storm - and yet their sirens were activated too.

How do you blame the NWS in this instance? I think it's a failure of local officials.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Nobody is blaming the NWS... I think the popular opinion is to ALWAYS assume that people are bashing the NWS (or SPC, or NOAA, etc.)

As Rob Dale said, the NWS did everything right... it was the emergency managers (or whoever else is in charge of the siren) who made the mistake. However, it's a pretty widespread mistake; there have been plenty of times where a TOR is issued for northeastern Oakland County (moving northeast), yet the southwestern section of the county has sirens blowing...

 

[Robert Rohloff]

Warning zones

About a week ago my wife called and woke me up saying the school where she works was getting kids into the halls for a tornado. I said what, there was no tornado or svr warning of any type put out by the weather service. Possibly someone saw a cold air funnel but more likely scud from low clouds. The city of Owasso set off their sirens on their own.

Be it emergency management or fire or police having them sound the siren they were not working off any data from NWS. I think with fatalities up this year and seeing the recent damage there is some CYA going on by government officials not wanting to be blamed for not hitting the siren. I also feel there is going to be a big learning curve for emergency management as we go to the limited warning areas, many are used to hitting the sirens regardless of where in the county a storm might be. I have seen the sirens hit just because the next county over had a torn/warned storm.

 

[Jeff Miller]

As a resident of the city of Toledo for over 20 years, I can tell you the policy is NOT due to the NWS. It is the local Emergency Management's policy of sounding ALL sirens county-wide whenever a tornado warning is issued anywhere in the county. I believe it is how the system is hooked up from the point of the individual who pushes the button. This is a county wide warning system, not city-wide, if I remember correctly.

 

[David Wagener]

Jeff...I think you may actually be right. I could probably check with my uncle who is a public official back there and find out. Of course I never lived inside the city limits for the 22 years I lived in the area...part of that time was across the river in Wood County. This could, hopefully, start a good dialog on finding a way to segment the system and allow them to warn only certain sections of the county.

 

[John Robinson]

Sirens are definitely one part of the warning process that lacks any consistency from place to place. I think there are several reasons for this. First, it's the lack of any well-recognized guidelines for when to sound the sirens and how to do it. To put it another way, there aren't any federal or state guidelines on how it should be done. Thus, each city/county/fire department gets to decide what to do. Some places sound the sirens continuously once there is a threat, others blow the sirens for awhile then stop for awhile and resume later. I even had a call once regarding a community dispute as to whether the sirens should be sounded for Tornado Watches. Another factor that comes into play, I think, is the wide range of sirens available and the fact that some jurisdictions have very old equipment. This can lead to problems such as one already noted here - the inability in some places to blow the sirens in only one part of the city/county without blowing them everywhere. Another factor that has been mentioned already, as well, is the idea of choosing to be safe rather than sorry. In some cases, especially in less-populated areas, the decision on when to sound the siren comes down to a radio operator/dispatcher who has little training on the subject and is already trying to do 19 things at once. And, often, such positions tend to be entry level ones, ensuring that there will be quite a bit of turnover in personnel.

 

[beaudodson]

Email the emergency management in that area and ask them what their policy is. Ask them if they have someone watching radar. How do they determine when to set the sirens off? Can they set the sirens off for certain sections of the county or do they have to do them for the whole county? Asking on here prob won't help.

It is a good topic though...