🚀 go-pugleaf

Help me out here.  The NWS issues a tornado for a given area, a county,
say.  This I understand.  Once the warning is issued, whose responsibility
then is it to blow the sirens?  My understanding is that it's the County
OES and/or municipal agency's responsibility.  Is the municipality/county
required to wait for a phone call from the NWS?

This is what the Ft Smith media (KHBS-40) wants the public to believe.
They are that the sirens weren't blown "because the NWS was 18 minutes
late calling".

Is this hooey?  *I* think so since I was watching the local media at the
time and saw the radar and saw the warning relayed by the TV-WX guy.  What
this is probably about is the fact that the WSFO at FSM is in the process
of being closed and the media want people to believe that the WSR-88D at
Inola is incapable of predicting storms in Ft Smith.  Well, I'm no
meteorologist, nor do I play one on the internet, but the images that were
on TV last night clearly showed rotation in the clouds (it was even on CNN
this AM).

So.  Whose responsibility is it to blow the siren?  Is the NWS being made
a scapegoat?

(PS the TV-WX guys are saying F3-F4, up to 6/10ths of a mile wide; the
governor is saying $250M damage; 2 fatalities in Ft Smith, 2 more in
Madison County.)

Peter Laws<plaws@comp.uark.edu>|"I'd rather get cable TV from the phone company
n5uwy@ka5bml.#nwar.ar.usa.noam |than phone service from the cable company"-unk.