Tornado Alley residents - do you pay attention to the sirens?

[Planogirl]

We get them here once in a while and I always check the local weather first. A severe thunderstorm with some spin can set off our alarms and if it's just that I stay ready and cautious.

 

[Keli]

I live too far out of town to hear the sirens. Just as well, there's no safe place in my house in a tornado anyway. But at work I would definitely go to our designated safe place.

 

[Colleen27]

Our siren went off today and my older DD(11) had her little sister and both dogs in the basement "dungeon" (windowless back room) in less time than it took me to unplug the power strips under my desk. I was pretty impressed, actually, because we get so little severe weather here that it isn't something we've spent much time talking about or practicing.

 

[Colleen27]

Tornados, yes, sound the alarm. A strong thunderstorm....NO!! It creates a somewhat "meh" feeling and you just get use to them always going off which IMO can be dangerous. Sadly my last yr in TX I got use to hearing the sirens so much that instead of taking cover I would turn the TV on to make sure it was just a thunderstorm warning and not something more serious.

I think it depends on how strong "strong" is. We've had severe weather warnings off and on for a couple of days now, but today was the first time the siren went off. It was "just" a severe thunderstorm but with tornado-force straight line winds, ridiculous lightning activity, and hail it was every bit as dangerous as the storm system that spawned tornadoes not far north of me on Tues.

I am ashamed to admit it, but no. I see where the storm is first. I live in a large city and they will run the alarms if a storm is 30 miles away.

I have that problem with radio/television warnings. The alert goes county wide and we're at the bottom of a comma-shaped county so sometimes it is for storms 30-45min north of us. But the city sirens tend to be more location specific so if they go off I do take it seriously.

 

[indimom]

I've lived in southeastern Indiana for 40 years and I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually gone to the basement. When we lived outside of town, we couldn't hear the sirens. We learned to read the weather for ourselves. Now, we live in town and our sirens sound for every single thunderstorm in the entire county and beyond. We just pay attention to the weather and the radar; and, keep the cellar door open and our shoes on, so we can hit it on a run if we have to.

 

[mfd25wife]

We don't usually hear the sirens because we live out of town. We get severe weather updates on our phones and people know exactly where we live so if the meterologists and DJ's on the radio are saying there is a tornado headed toward "x" town, our friends will send many messages in case we aren't paying attention. They are good at tracking down to the area of the county, town, etc.

We did have one incident recently where Verizon accidentally had a tornado warning, and it even said it was in the city closest to us. It turned out that it was a false alarm that sent a mass alert to thousands in the county.

 

[NMAmy]

I have a hard time hearing the sirens at night with the A/C on. The Red Cross has a great iPhone app that sends an alert for tornado warnings and thunderstorm warnings. It works great.

We had a warning just the other day. We head to the basement and then watch tv downstairs to see exactly where the trouble is. The other day, we realized it was quite a ways south of us and heading east so we didn't stay downstairs.

 

[Jey12]

As I'm reading this the alert on my TV is going off that we're going to be put under a server thunderstorm warning soon. I don't discount and am not making light of cities where devastating tornadoes rip up by any means, but I pretty much blow off the sirens. Well I blow them off by the standards of someone who isn't used to this area. I am very weather aware. I pay attention to what is coming in and what can be expected. Yes tornadoes can drop out of a storm without warning, but in every case I can think of you had a warning that there could be storms at least. The 10pm news last night very plainly explained the chances of severe weather between 4am and 9am today was high. A tornado would not be a surprise, even if it dropped out of a storm with very little warning. Almost any tornado that hits at night is with very little warning as visually identifying the cues are going to be more difficult, or if it's a rain wrapped tornado it's even more difficult.

I live in a very large county that is a suburb of Kansas City, on the Kansas side, and not only do they tend to sound the sirens for at least half if not all of our county. I can also hear sirens for 3 of the surrounding counties. I live in Kansas. I am not going to be paranoid about a tornado watch. Like any good native Kansan I simply assume I am under a tornado watch from May until October every year. The sirens mean I need to stop assuming and turn on the TV or pull up the radar on my phone. Or simply look up and see what's going on in the sky.

I blame the media for the complacency with many regarding storms. I think the recent tragedies have made people be less complacent, and more aware, but there are always the select few who are "special." For many years we had a weather person who would not only try and use scare tactics, but she would also stay on the air and follow a thunderstorm from the Colorado border to the Atlantic ocean. I'm almost series about this. Usually she stopped yammering on about the time the storm hit the Kentucky border. She also would tell people that the chance of severe storm was high (in reality no higher than normal) and to put infants in their car seats to sleep with helmets on in your basement. Now come on. Take a moment and visualize a 3 month old wearing a helmet in a carseat in a basement for the night. How safe is that? She was a joke and so her warnings became a joke.

Main thing is to have a plan, keep calm, and know what's going on. Don't ignore the forecasts, instead pay attention and know what nights you need to be more aware.

Next is most people don't realize the sirens are not meant to wake people up or even be heard in a house. They are meant to alert people outside of their homes to take shelter inside.

We don't have a basement and have picked the hall closet as our safe place. We have a decent sized crawl space, but there's spiders down there and spiders are icky.

Make sure your kids know the tornado plan. DD7 knows if she's told she is to go into the hall closet and cover up with the thick sleeping bag. We also keep an emergency kit in the closet with a working flash light, her spare bike helmet and other things. She also knows not to stop and worry about any pets, her teddy bear or American Girl doll. If there's time, mom and dad will worry about these things.

While alert apps on a phone are nice, I prefer a radar app so I can see exactly what is going on and where.

Most tornadoes move in a north east direction. If you are south west of the funnel, you are better to check the radar and see what's to the south west of you.

Know what wall clouds and scud clouds are. Pay attention to what's going on in the sky and what the local wildlife and animals are doing. This is one of many instances where they tend to be smarter than we are.

Keep calm. Most people are injured and killed by flying debris. If you are mostly concerned about being sucked into a tornado you are worried about the wrong thing. Focus your protection on how to best avoid flying debris to give yourself the best chance of staying safe.

I can't say this enough. Pay attention to the weather if you live in a tornado prone area. It's a very rare instance where a tornadic storm pops up without some sort of warning there might be bad weather that day.

Thankfully the sirens don't go off around here for severe weather. Because we are under a severe warning now and I'm thinking it's great sleeping weather! Nighty night.

 

[bookgirl]

Born and raised in Oklahoma.

Honestly most of the times we use the sirens to tell when to go outside and start filming. But everyone here knows that the sirens mean to look up and turn on a tv or weather radio.

For the most part we are very weather aware here. We have top meteorologists working for our local stations and a huge tracking facility in Norman so we usually have hours to forcast, predict, and decide the best course of action. We start preparing our kids in preschool what to do during tornado season and how to ride out the storm.

What happened recently in Moore was the 1% of the time when there was nothing to do. It really didn't matter how prepared we were it was so bad that it was beyond control.

We have horrific weather every spring and for the most part we have very little loss of life, which makes the times that we do lose folks twice as bad. So yes we pay attention to the sirens, but we don't immediatly panic when we hear them.

 

[Liberty Belle]

I'm not talking about the kind of storm that came through OK. That was enormous, on the ground a long time, and everyone took cover there. I'm sorry for everyone dealing with the huge tragedy.

I mean the alarms that go off from time to time when storms are coming through? We moved to the Midwest 6 years ago and while we don't freak out anymore, we do still go to the basement pretty quickly any time the sirens go off.

Sirens sounded late at night last weekend and we went down until the news said it was clear. It surprises me when I talk to other people who comment they either sleep through the sirens or choose not to do anything differently when they go off.

So I'm curious, were you raised with sirens or move to an area that has them and how do you handle tornado sirens?

I live in Kentucky and it has moderate tornadic activity. Yes, if there is a siren or a tornado warning on tv, we immediately go downstairs to our designated area. It's next to a closet where there are flashlights, pillows, blankets, a weather radio, and water bottles. We also put the dog in his crate near us. We haven't had a warning since we got the cats, so not sure what we'll do about them. I should think about that and decide now.

 

[ZephyrHawk]

Sirens don't go off around here unless there's a tornado warning (not just a watch or a severe storm). Well, and at 1pm on the first Satruday of the month. When I hear them any other time, I get to the basement. Did that last week when tornados came through just to the north of my town.

 

[powellrj]

We get them all the time and I don't pay attention like I should. There is a joke on facebook that you can tell when the sirens go off, everyone grabs their beer and a lawn chair.

While I am not that bad, I usually do go out on the porch and see what is happening. I have always made everyone put their shoes on, but that is about as pro active as we get!

 

[JayhawkMomma]

Yeah, no. I send my kids to the basement and then I go outside and look up. Our house backs to the west so I can get a great view of the weather rolling in. Just saw my first tornado a year ago, went to the basement when it got close to the house.

I've been driving lots of times when the sirens go off. They go off over the entire county and Johnson County is pretty big so it may be nowhere near me. I look up at the sky and turn the radio to see what we need to do. I'm not stupid and wreckless about it but tornados warning aren't uncommon around here. I swear the sirens go off and all the adults immediately go outside.

 

[NotUrsula]

Yes and no. The sirens here are set to cover a very broad area, so the storm could be 20 miles away and moving in the wrong direction. Like a lot of people here, I normally take them as a cue to check media for more details and watch the sky for danger signs.

I cannot hear the sirens when I'm sleeping (they are loud enough, and there is one mounted on the corner three doors down) but I'm just a really heavy sleeper, so it isn't enough to wake me up. Storms in the wee hours do frighten me, because my children are heavy sleepers as well, and big enough that they need to get down to the basement on their own feet.

 

[bettymae1121]

I pay attention to them in the sense that I turn the tv on when I hear them. But I also keep an eye on the forecasts this time of year. For example storms are predicted for my area for sometime tonight, so I'll keep an ear out for the siren and check the radar on line now and again, especially right before bedtime if the storm hasn't hit or passed us by then.

My biggest fear is a night time tornado. With the house shut up and the AC on I'd never be woken by a siren in time. So I just today ordered a NOAA radio for my bedroom. If that goes off in the middle of the night I'll grab DD and head for the basement, if there really is a bad storm/tornado then I may not have enough time to turn a tv on to confirm anything.

What I do have in my area that can be handy is that I live very near a golf course with a lightening siren. It's meant to warn golfers to get off the course if there is lightening, but everyone in the immediate area can hear it too, so they sent us a flyer back when they first installed it telling us what it meant and that if we heard it, it would be a good idea to go inside ourselves. DH does a lot of work outside so I make him come inside if that siren goes of (it sounds different than the tornado siren so it's easy to tell the difference). A bolt of lightening can kill you just as dead as a funnel cloud.

 

[Jey12]

Yeah, no. I send my kids to the basement and then I go outside and look up. Our house backs to the west so I can get a great view of the weather rolling in. Just saw my first tornado a year ago, went to the basement when it got close to the house.

I've been driving lots of times when the sirens go off. They go off over the entire county and Johnson County is pretty big so it may be nowhere near me. I look up at the sky and turn the radio to see what we need to do. I'm not stupid and wreckless about it but tornados warning aren't uncommon around here. I swear the sirens go off and all the adults immediately go outside.

Howdy neighbor. We're in Overland Park and just our city alone can be like 2 different climates at times with what goes on in south OP vs. north OP. So even if they set the sirens off for just our city, it's close enough for me to pay attention but not run for cover. The intention of the sirens are only for people to go inside and either turn on the TV, radio or whatever to gain more information and instructions on what to do. I had my alerts on my phone app last night and it went off for a flash flood warning 2 counties over. So I shut it off. It was noisy last night, but nothing I needed to be alerted about.

 

[nighttowll]

No, I live in tornado ally, and we don't really pay attention to the sirens. As others have said, we will turn on the news and see where the storm is, but that's about it. This is for two reasons.

The first is that the sirens go off all the time during tornado season. I'm talking it could be 2 or 3 times in one week for weeks in a row. Its hard to get anything done, and you still have to get up and go to work even if they were going off all night. We are also just use to getting hit and sometimes thunderstorms do as much damage or more than actual tornados, and in those cases, the sirens never even go off. My building at work has been hit at least 4 times in the last year maybe more. That's the only place we actually respond because company safety policy says by law we must seek shelter in the bathroom. So all the employes hang out in he bathrooms while our boss walks around outside. One year we got hit, he came flying into the girls bathroom so fast you wouldn't believe it. He'd been outside watching the storm when all of a sudden a funnel dropped down almost on top of him.

The second reason we sometimes ignore the sirens is because we don't have anywhere to go. None of the houses here have basements. The last house I lived in had no interior rooms, and the back half of the house was all glass. My current home isn't much better. I figure if the house gets hit, then that's it, it won't matter where I am inside of it. Lots of people walk around outside or sit on the porch to watch, and I totally get that. I mean if you are going to die, you might as well have a good view, right. We just don't have anywhere to go. I personally, stay indoors, and will monitor the radar. If it looks like it is getting close, then I will stay downstairs. Besides that, there's not a whole lot else we can do. I have a neighbor who makes the kids put their bike helmets on. Which I guess could help some, but if the whole house falls down around you, not sure that's really going to save them, a basement would be nicer.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I'm not talking about the kind of storm that came through OK. That was enormous, on the ground a long time, and everyone took cover there. I'm sorry for everyone dealing with the huge tragedy.

I mean the alarms that go off from time to time when storms are coming through? We moved to the Midwest 6 years ago and while we don't freak out anymore, we do still go to the basement pretty quickly any time the sirens go off.

Sirens sounded late at night last weekend and we went down until the news said it was clear. It surprises me when I talk to other people who comment they either sleep through the sirens or choose not to do anything differently when they go off.

So I'm curious, were you raised with sirens or move to an area that has them and how do you handle tornado sirens?

Depends on the circumstances....

1) We have the weather on and are already checking (we are weather nerds). We also have a NOAA radio just in case. If the sirens are going off and they have a tornado on the ground we go into the basement.

2) If it is not storming or minimal weather happening at the moment, we go outside to watch/look/take pictures, lol.

3) If it is actively storming and stuff is flying around we are in the basement sirens or not. We have big windows in the living room. Straight line winds can be pretty scary as well.

 

[mom2rtk]

I have lived in tornado alley nearly my entire life. In our area, the sirens really don't go off that often. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have heard them since buying our house 24 years ago. So when they go, I take them seriously.

Watches I don't pay attention to.

Warnings I tune in and pay close attention.

Sirens we head for the basement.

 

[tchrrx]

If tornados seem likely, then I get our storm shelter ready. Once the system starts picking up, several friends come over to our house. We keep an eye on the t.v. If any rotation is in our area, we take the kids and get them in the shelter. The guys stay by the t.v. to keep an eye on things. If the guys join us in the shelter, then we know it is getting close. Earlier this year the guys came in and triple bolted the shelter door. That's when I knew things were getting serious. The first Oklahoma tornado (Shawnee) that killed a few people and demolished a trailer home was just a few miles away from me.

We are generally in the shelter before the sirens sound. As a matter of fact, I don't think we've ever waited on the sirens before taking shelter. We rely on our weather radio and the t.v. coverage.