New Policy Set For
Tornado Warning Sirens

May 7, 2009
A Tornado Warning has been issued for Cullman County which means the City of Arab warning sirens will sound immediately.  Right?  Well not exactly.  A tornado warning was issued for Cullman County during the severe weather on Wednesday but the sirens were silent.  Arab EMA Director Ricky Phillips said  a new policy regarding the activation of the City's tornado warning sirens caused some confusion and had numerous Arab residents calling the EMA office wondering if the system had malfunctioned.

Phillips said the old policy was to activate the warning sirens anytime Blount, Cullman, or Morgan counties went under a tornado warning.  Activating the sirens under that policy sometimes led to false warnings when the Arab area was not actually threatened.  For example, a storm moving through the Cullman area would prompt the issuance of a warning for Cullman County which would automatically cause the City of Arab sirens to sound.  Often the severe weather would travel either North or South of Arab without causing any danger.  Phillips said, "Too many times of crying wolf leads people to not take the warning serious which can be deadly when they don't heed the warning when there is an actual threat to our area."

The current policy is to closely monitor the weather activity that is projected to affect the Arab area.  Close consultations with the National Weather Service and monitoring of weather radar, along with storm spotter visual reports are used to determine if, or when, the sirens are activated.  That was the case Wednesday.

According to Phillips, EMA officials monitoring the Wednesday weather events made the decision not to activate the sirens based on information from the Weather Service, spotters, and radar tracking.  The storm eventually tracked to the North of Arab and Union Grove and into the Grant area.  Phillips said that if a potential tornado is projected to move toward the City of Arab the sirens would be activated to warn the community of the need to seek shelter.

The outdoor warning system is tested weekly by utilizing a silent test which establishes communication between the control console and each of the sirens that are on-line.  Each siren transmits a report back to the AEMA office showing whether the siren is working properly or has problems.