County adopts new siren activation policy

During the June 17 county board meeting, Waseca County Emergency Services Director Denise Wright shared a new policy regarding when severe weather sirens will be activated in Waseca County. Wright shared that she recently met with Sheriff Jay Dulas regarding siren activation, and also researched what practices are followed in other counties.

 

Wright explained to commissioners that, under the changed policy, all tornado sirens in the communities of Janesville, New Richland, Waldorf and Waseca will be activated if a tornado warning is issued anywhere within the county.

 

It had already happened during the previous day’s storms, Wright reported, that people in some communities heard the siren and were immediately confused, since they were under a clear, blue sky at the time. In a case of interesting coincidence, the new policy was put in place and publicized the morning of June 16; that evening a line of storms which had spawned numerous tornadoes swept across the county, leading to the new policy being followed twice in a single evening.

 

Though Wright had shared information on FaceBook and asked that viewers pass the news along, she said the short turnaround time meant relatively few people were aware of the new procedures at the time.

 

“The idea of the change,” she went on, “is to raise people’s awareness. They know, if they hear the siren, there is severe weather somewhere in the vicinity and they should be going to the sources they rely on for more information.

 

“Not that they need to seek shelter immediately, but they should find out more and be ready to respond appropriately.”

 

Any time the county is under a severe weather watch, Wright went on to explain, local weather spotters are dispersed across the area. If spotters see a danger developing, they will report it to the county dispatch center and sirens will be sounded again, but this time only in any community affected by the identified feature.

 

“We hope news will keep spreading and next time people will not be confused,” commented Wright. “Our goal is to make sure people have the information they need to be safe, and we believe this policy will encourage them to get that information.”

 

In addition to measures taken at the county level, Wright mentioned, there is also a practice called “code red notification.” Under code red, the smartphones of people who are in the “polygon” which marks the likely area of a tornado on the national weather map receive a notice on their phones.