Why Were Tornado Sirens Activated?

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Last night, when the damaging winds got to Detroit (knocking out power to 140,000 hems and businesses) the tornado sirens were sounded during the night. Why?
Turns out that a number of the communities have "70 mph winds" as an activation criterion. Those who have read When the Sirens Were Silent know there are real issues involving communication and false alarms when the sirens are used for anything except tornadoes. Please consider this if you are involved with siren activation policy.

Comments

  1. KerriJuly 1, 2014 at 10:06 PM

    I consider myself decently storm hearty & knowledgable after growing up in Kansas my first 25 years. I have lived the past 11 years in the northern suburbs of Detroit. I was confused when we first moved here why the sirens would sound during a thunderstorm without a tornado warning but after living here I know that's is a semi-standard here during storms. Last night our siren only sounded for two minutes. Enough to wake me up, check the radar & see it was not tornado warned. I find this extra "need" to sound the sirens confusing & misleading. There was much confusion & complaining throughout the community today. I do see the point that is made in the article you linked to, that people need to be aware of the danger of high level straight line winds but in my opinion, sounding the sirens too often, leads to complacency in this region. Most people I know here don't know what do to during a tornado warning nor would heed one correctly, saying "oh, those loud things go off every time it storms here..." Saying all that, we did have a pretty sizable wind event come through last night, a gust of 74 mph was recorded a few miles northwest of us. There are trees & lines down today in the area. If a tree had the potential to come down in my yard or on my house & a siren had the possibility to alert me to that then I don't mind the extra sounding but it definitely leads to some confusion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mike SmithJuly 2, 2014 at 8:29 AM

    As I said in my book, the #1 thing agencies need to do is continuously publicize siren activation policies. Too many do not.

    Glad you were not hurt in the storm.

    ReplyDelete

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