🚀 go-pugleaf

To respond to you Rob, I'm not saying that NWS can't recommend evacuations,
I'm saying that the TV station as they can do sometimes can make it sound
like "a mass exodus" is necessary. Its also to depict the unnecessary
political garbage that gets thrown in sometimes when serving emergency
management functions. The TV may have responded properly and not overblown
the situation yet the EMA office maybe got upset when they shouldn't of. As
Glenn Field Warning Coordination Meteorologist told me, You can't please
everybody, and quite frankly I would rather see people be forewarned early
and told to evacuate then the other way around. If they told people to
evacuate earlier then what EMA wants here in South Coastal Massachusetts for
a hurricane, I'd much rather see that, then evacuations when its too late.

73,Rob-KD1CY.
SKYWARN Training Coordinator
Greater New Bedford Emergency Coordinator


At 12:00 AM 4/25/96 -0500, you wrote:
>Date:    Wed, 24 Apr 1996 08:15:18 -0500
>From:    Robert P Dale <rdale@NORDEN1.COM>
>Subject: Re: SKYWARN Digest - 22 Apr 1996 to 23 Apr 1996
>
>At 01:56 AM 4/24/96 -0400, you wrote:
>>I agree with Kevin on the sirens, its Emergency Management's call.
>>
>>It was noted in southern New Hampshire that NWS did a great job in
>>forecasting flooding. Problem is when they issue a flood warning, wording is
>>used such as evacuation of low-lying areas should occur. Well, one of the TV
>>stations ran off and said that without emergency management authority, so
>>EMA in Goffstown, NH was upset. Even though it was the right call, the
>>political rights of responsibility are...
>>
>>1.) NWS issues warning.
>>2.) Emergency Management takes action. (I.E. Sounds sirens alert media,
public)
>>3.) TV stations reports EMA and NWS info.
>>
>>If not done in that order, the "political" problem cranks out.
>
>I see no problem with NWS recommending evacuations... They aren't requiring
>a mass exodus, just making some suggestions on how to stay alive. They also
>tell people to go into the basement for tornados, should that get EMA
>approval first as well?
>
>Rob
>////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
>Robert P Dale                      ||                    rdale@norden1.com
>University of Toledo               ||          rdale@storm.atms.purdue.edu
>  Northwest Ohio Weather Info on http://norden1.com/~rdale/weather.html
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Wed, 24 Apr 1996 11:28:24 CDT
>From:    Fulton County Emergency Services <fcesda@HEARTLAND.BRADLEY.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Blowing the Sirens / Sirens: Whose Responsibility
>
>>
>>Date:    Tue, 23 Apr 1996 07:04:02 +0100
>>From:    Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV administrator
>>         <owner-LISTSERV@POSTOFFICE.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
>>Subject: Blowing the Sirens
>>
>>Your county government must have been napping on that one...
>>
>>The FIRST thing the NWS office does is alert the NAWAS system for weather
>>warnings, then they type in the warning into AFOS...then it goes out via
>>NOAA radio......
>>
>
>NAWAS _DOES NOT_ cover everything.  In small rural counties, or in counties
>where the EOC is not staffed 24 hours a day, there is no NAWAS.
>Here in Fulton County, we have no NAWAS: the State Police are the NAWAS
>communication point for most of the rural counties in Illinois.  Only
>the big counties with a large tax base can afford to maintain the cost
>of NAWAS and the cost of 24-hour-a-day staffing.
>
>>The NAtional WArning System has been in place since the 1950's and is
>>basically one giant conference call telephone....if your EOC wasn't
>>paying attention then they should take the blame
>
>If the EOC missed the warning from the NWS, then, yes, they should take the
>blame.  If they don't have NAWAS, for whatever reason, then are they to
>blame for not having NAWAS?  I don't think so.  We receive emergency
>notifications through our county dispatch point at the Sheriff's Office,
>when our EOC is not open.  It works well for us.  No, the Sheriff's Office
>does NOT have NAWAS.
>
>>                                                  ....and the sirens belong
>>to the county or municipality....NWS does not control them
>
>Correct.  See the rest of this message (below) for more discussion.
>
>>
>>de Kevin Heyboer KD4UYR
>>Pinellas County FL  Skywarn Coordinator
>>
>>------------------------------
>>
>>Date:    Tue, 23 Apr 1996 21:56:29 GMT
>>From:    Bill Lefler <wo0e@SKY.NET>
>>Subject: Re: Sirens: Whose responsibility?
>>
>>Peter Laws (plaws@BABO.UARK.EDU) wrote:
>>: 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?
>>:
>>:
>>: So.  Whose responsibility is it to blow the siren?  Is the NWS being made
>>: a scapegoat?
>>:
>>My $0.02 worth (and a bargin at that!!!:-)
>>        As I understand it, the NWS is responsible for issuing the
>>Warning. However, the local municipality/County Emergency Management is
>>who blows the sirens. Here in Kansas City KS, The Emergency Manager will
>>blow the siren immediately upon a report of a funnel cloud, or a wall
>>cloud with sufficient rotation, when the report is from a known, reliable
>>spotter. It is the responsiblity of the OEM for all siren activity,
>>including testing and maintenance, as well as blowing them "For Real".
>
>Well said!
>
>>        I believe most Emergency managers will wait until the NWS issues
>>the "Official" warning to avoid the legal reprecussions that assuming the
>>lead may expose one to. By waiting until the NWS issues the warning, they
>>have someone to blame if it is too late. This is my *opinion*, nothing
>>more. As I stated, in Wyandotte County Kansas, we will blow the siren
>>*first*, then notify the NWS of the report (or possibly at the same
>>time).
>>        As stated, this is all my opinion. If it is misguided, incorrect,
>>off target, arbitrary, and obtuse then it certainly should be
>>recognizable as mine! :-)
>>BCNU Lef (Bill Lefler/WO0E Kansas City/Wyandotte County Kansas)
>>wo0e@sky.net
>>
>
>I am the Deputy Director of our County's emergency management agency, which
>we call the Emergency Services and Disaster Agency.
>
>I think we hashed this out about two years ago on WX-TALK, but it is
>worth repeating periodically.
>
>The local emergency management agency is responsible for warning the
>people in its jurisdiction.  That includes blowing sirens, if it has
>sirens under its control (Fulton County has no sirens under its direct
>control, but local municipalities do).
>
>The National Weather Service does not have the ultimate responsibility for
>warning -- the local emergency management agency does.  In practice, this
>means that sirens will be blown when the NWS issues a tornado warning, but
>this does not abrogate the local EMA's responsibility to blow sirens without
>an NWS warning when, in the view of the local EMA officials, the situation
>warrants it.  The issue is not sirens -- it is warning the public.  That
>is the local EMA's responsibility, because it is the local EMA that is
>defined by statute as the warning authority within the jurisdiction it
>serves.  While most EMAs work in partnership with the NWS and will
>respond to NWS warnings, the duty and responsibility to warn are local.
>
>For the record, we have only issued one tornado warning -- clearly stating
>that "The Fulton County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency has issued
>a tornado warning . . . " -- in the past 9 years.  That was when we felt
>the conditions warranted it, based on in-county spotter reports to our
>agency.  This was after multiple requests to our local NWS office to issue
>a warning, and we kept being told the request was being evaluated.  We
>felt justified in issuing a warning, and 15 minutes later the NWS did
>actually issue a warning.  Yes, we informed the NWS we were issuing a warning
>on our own.  Later, we had a meeting with the NWS and there hasn't been
>a problem since.
>
>The point I am trying to make here is that we have the responsibility and
>the authority, as an emergency management agency, to warn our populace when
>a threat exists -- and we have the duty to warn when necessary.
>
>Flames, kudos, and further discussion welcome.
>
>                                     -- Phil Fleming
>                                        Deputy Director
>
>
>
>--
>      Fulton County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency
> Rural Route 2, 435 N. Avenue F, Canton, Illinois 61520   (309) 647-7701
>   Fax: (309) 647-1226   E-mail address: fcesda@heartland.bradley.edu
>       "Support Your Local Emergency Services Management Agency!"
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Wed, 24 Apr 1996 14:29:12 -0500
>From:    Chris Novy <chris@LIB.SIU.EDU>
>Subject: Tornadoes, Sirens, and the Public
>
>With several recent tornado outbreaks there has been a lot of discussion
>about tornado sirens.  It's generally agreed that the NWS issues warnings
>but it's up to local emergency management (EM) to actually activate the
>sirens (there may be a few exceptions).  We've heard that in some cases
>local EM will activate their sirens based on nothing more than rotating
>wall clouds --regardless of whether a tornado warning is in effect.  Last
>year on WX-TALK Greg Stumpf and I had some dialogue about whether local EM
>should activate their sirens based solely on NWS radar indications.  While I
>said that we (my emergency management organization) prefer to verify events
>before sounding the sirens I did concede that there are circumstances where
>spotter information is lacking and/or viisibility is poor --making radar-based
>warnings the only thing to go on.
>
>Last Friday night we had a series of small but powerful storms (basically
>isolated cells in a line but not a squall line in the true sense of the
>word) that the Paducah, KY 88D was getting mesocyclone indications on.  Paducah
>issued a series of tornado warnings for which some of them had verifiable
>tornado damage.  What I fould interesting is that several communities
>activated their sirens even though the storms were well northwest of their
>communities and moving to the northeast.  I've noticed a tendency, at least
>around here in southern Illinois, for people to throw out verification and
>procedures and default back to panic mode as soon as any nearby city reports
>having a tornado.
>
>Friday night I was out chasing in the county (since nothing was happening in
>Carbondale) when my deputy coordinator advised me that he was about to sound
>Carbondale's sirens based on a radar-indicated developing tornado in a cell
>15 miles northwest of Carbondale and moving northeast at 45 MPH.  At our EOC
>we had The Weather Channel on and the local radar was showing no storms in
>our immediate vicinity.  Despite having information indicating that Carbondale
>was in no immediate danger, our officials felt it was necessary to activate
>the sirens.  I was able to talk them out of doing this by walking them
>through the verification steps over the cell phone.  I'm curious whether this
>"throw out the procedures" mentality is a local phenonema or whether people
>have seen it elsewhere.  While there's some truth to saying it's better to
>err on the side of safety and that it's better to be safe than sorry, I
>can't help but wonder how the general public is affected by false alarms.
>
>Comments anyone?  ..Chris..
>*====================================================================*
>Chris Hayes Novy - WA9V   Internet: chris@siu.edu
>Southern Illinois Univ.             chris@lib.siu.edu
>Systems Administration       Phone: (618) 453-1683 (work)
>Morris Library                      (618) 457-6149 (home)
>Carbondale, IL 62901-6632      FAX: (618) 453-3440
>*====================================================================*
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Wed, 24 Apr 1996 22:46:04 -0500
>From:    Peter Laws <plaws@BABO.UARK.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Sirens: Whose responsibility? - UPDATE
>
>Well, the other TeeVee station in the Ft Smith, Ark market, KFSM-5, is
>being a bit more objective.  Yesterday they had Steve Piltz, WCM at NWS
>TUL, on to explain how things are (not how some would have the populace
>believe!).  The rapid development of the storm was illustrated with some
>data from the WSR88D.
>
>This evening, the TV5 WX guy talked to the dispatch supervisor at the Ft
>Smith PD.  She admitted that "No, they had no weather radio" and "No, they
>had no TV" and "No, they had no teletype other than ACIC" and "No, they
>had no working relationship with the ham spotters in the area" and "No,
>they had no other means of notification of warnings other than patrolmen
>calling in wall clouds or phone calls from the NWS."  This, in a city of
>~75,000 ...
>
>The TeeVee guy was nice and didn't say anything like "Well, jeez, whad'ya
>expect?"
>
>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.
>
>------------------------------
>
>End of SKYWARN Digest - 23 Apr 1996 to 24 Apr 1996
>**************************************************
>
>