Taking A Stand: Siren not needed every time it rains
There was barely a cloud in the sky this past week yet the new $85,000 weather warning siren was sounding due to a policy which is tantamount to crying wolf for the umpteenth time.
I take that back. There was a lone drop of rain which hit my windshield as I rolled down my window to hear the eerie sound of the warning siren going off for whatever reason. Minutes later, I walked into the newspaper office to find out if there was a test scheduled or whether I should start taking cover from an air raid.
However, a check of Doppler radar revealed the culprit, that being a severe thunderstorm cloud which was skirting the extreme southeastern portion of Warren County.
Have I written something about this before? Yes. I touched on it in a column last summer, noting how the continual blasting of warning sirens every time a stiff wind blows is making the citizens cynical when it comes to reacting to the warning.
The policy right now is to sound the sirens not only during tornado warnings but during severe thunderstorm warnings. And, seeing warnings are issued for entire counties, we can have instances, like last week, where a small system is heading 20 miles south of McMinnville and the siren is blaring here in town.
I understand severe thunderstorms can spawn heavy straight-line winds which can rip off roofs and topple trailers. But, I also understand the city has a code not allowing trailers within the city limits so who are we warning?
The whole thing goes back to a request in March 2004 where the city directed the sirens to be sounded even in the case of a severe thunderstorm. While apparently deciding to err on the side of caution, the decision is basically making the new $85,000 system nothing more than a high-priced, hi-fi system which plays eerie sounds. Sure, it sounds cool but people are ignoring it, dismissing it as either a test or a needless thunderstorm warning.
Folks, it doesn’t take a genius to know there’s a severe thunderstorm. We can all see the wind, rain, thunder and lightning. What I want to know is if there’s something coming with it, like a tornado, something I need to take cover from.
If the thing sounds as regular as “Stairway to Heaven” plays on the oldies station, we aren’t going to take notice. Instead, it’s just like the last few warning siren blasts I’ve heard. People are going to go about their business and are going to be caught unaware when a real tornado comes bearing down on them.
Folks, we have this nice new alarm system which pretty well covers the entire city and we also have the Doppler radar technology which can indicate tornados before they hit the ground and allow for early tornado warnings. Why not change policy so the system only sounds when there is a true emergency?
You can argue like Bill Hall with me all day about the danger of tornados spawning from thunderstorms, but I’ll argue right back that it’s much more dangerous to the masses to make them complacent by overusing the system.
I think everybody is wanting the same thing, that is, the people of McMinnville to be warned of a pending emergency. I’m just saying crying wolf is going to leave many folks flat-footed and scoffing when the day does come to take cover.
(Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)