Monday, August 28, 2006

Re: Mailbag: Weather sirens - totally useless?



William Lathrop <bill@wlathrop.com> wrote:
<< Couldn't figure out how to post directly to the Observer - so hoping you will cut and paste for me.  Thanks for this valuable forum.  I visit fairly regularly.>>

Recently, tornado activity in Rock County lead to the activation of Evansville emergency sirens.

Fortunately for us - less so for others - the severe weather was in eastern Rock county - far from Evansville and no threat.  This is not the first such false alarm - in fact perhaps most alarms are false, leading residents to disregard or certainly discount them. 

But because Evansville sits at the western edge of Rock County - does that make us the Canary in the County?  If severe weather were in Green County heading toward us, would our sirens sound? 

Clearly our emergency sirens are an investment in technology, equipment and maintenance.  Perhaps they would be a better investment if they were actually of some value.  I would encourage our city's managers to review emergency siren policy, adopt practices that would ensure adequate notification in the event we were threatened, and publish notices to the effect that our emergency sirens are a useful and important part of the city's infrastructure.

Best
Bill


--
William Lathrop
www.wlathrop.com
608.513.7299 (cell)

No comments:

Post a Comment