“JEFFERSON
CITY - Two of the fourteen tornado sirens in the state's capitol don't work.
Those are in addition to two other sirens in Jefferson City that were fixed
recently. All these siren failures fall during a year that is on track to break
into the top five deadliest years for victims of tornadoes.
“The city
chalks up the multiple siren failures to an aging system. The average tornado
siren lasts about 50 years, about as long as those in Jefferson City have been
operating. City officials say it's increasingly difficult to find replacement
parts for the old sirens, which were initially intended to warn citizens who
were outdoors of air raids.
“Jefferson
City plans on replacing all of its 14 sirens within 12 to 24 months with new
digital sirens that can broadcast a further distance and voice announcements.
They also plan on rolling out a phone warning system that will call landlines
and cell phones to warn of inclement weather.”
Cassi Creek:
I spent part
of my youth in Jefferson City. As state
capital cities go, it has always been provincial in nature, more or less
surrounded by anti-missile batteries and Minute Man ICBM launch complexes, and
possessed of the misconception that some geographic feature will protect it
from tornadic destruction.
Over the
years since my departure, the cold war has ended, National Weather Service
radar storm tracking has improved, and a city –wide warning system has been
allowed to decay.
Jefferson
City is not alone in this maintenance failure. The Cold War air-raid sirens
were designed to alert people working outside to be certain to turn toward the
bright flash so that they will be spared the horrors of watching western
civilization destroyed. Today’s
conditions differ. Those old Cold War
warning sirens are now being placed into use to warn the populace of an
impending disaster that can potentially be survived with adequate preparation
and adequate warning. Adequate warning
is the crux. If the warning sirens can’t
be heard, they are merely non-functional relics of the Cold War.
During the
Cold War’s earlier years, we attempted to place warning sirens where they could
alert the greatest number of people to take cover. In the passing of time, the cities have
decayed and urban sprawl has put greater numbers of people beyond the linear
audibility limits. We have also become a
much noisier place. Cars block the
roads, most of them blaring some audio file at > 100 decibels.
Sirens
were not designed to alert those inside buildings. An AM radio alert was intended to notify
indoor workers of national emergencies.
“CONELRAD (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation) was a method of emergency broadcasting to the public of the United States in the event of enemy attack during
the Cold War. It was intended to serve two
purposes; to prevent Soviet bombers from
homing in on American cities by using radio or TV stations as beacons, and to provide
essential civil defense information. U.S. President Harry S. Truman established CONELRAD in 1951. After
the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles reduced the likelihood of a bomber
attack, CONELRAD was replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System on August 5, 1963, which was later
replaced with the Emergency Alert
System in 1997; all
were administered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).[1]
“Unlike its
successors, the EBS and EAS, CONELRAD was never intended to be used for severe
weather warnings or local civil emergencies.”
In fact, the old Cold War sirens
were minimally useful when first installed and can be nearly useless
today. They require electricity to power
them. Since power lines and grids are
often damaged in tornadic storms, a battery back up is necessary for public safety. However, in a tornado or a tornadic
thunderstorm, sirens may not be audible at all.
I’ve been within 100 meters of a siren being used to alert a town and
have been unable to hear the siren due to wind, hail, and rain.
The current plan in use in many
cities, universities, and other locations – landline and cell line calling
programs – is also hampered by power, cable, and tower losses in proximity to
approaching storms. For these mechanisms
to work warnings must be provided to the public at least 20 minutes prior to
storms affecting target areas.
We live in an extremely remote and
rural area. It is highly likely that we
will lose power, cable/internet, landlines, and cell access during any major storm. The only thing that we can rely upon is a
NOAA weather radio. During last April’s tornadoes,
we were fortunate to have such a radio in the house. We now have two. Both are battery powered, automatically
recharging, and one of them has a small hand-cranked, internal generator Reception quality is poor in quality but
available despite the loss of power, cable/internet, and cell service that
requires a powered booster to piggyback internet.
There are no perfect warning
systems. There never have been. In all probability there never will be. Get your weather radio and learn to “Duck and
Cover.” Now that the threat of nuclear
warfare with the Soviet Union no longer exists, that old drill finally offers
some real hope of survival.
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