May 23, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
Strong to severe storms are in the forecast again for the next few days which has prompted local officials to encourage residents of Smithville and DeKalb County to be storm ready.
(Click link below to register for weather alerts)
With Smithville already having been struck by an EF1 tornado this month, DeKalb Emergency Management Agency Director Charlie Parker is advising people to pay heed to storm alerts and if outdoors, listen for tornado sirens in Smithville during times of tornado warnings
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The City of Smithville has three such tornado sirens including one on the water tower near the high school and outdoor athletic fields, another on the water tower on Miller Road near industries and residential areas, and a third siren atop the city hall building downtown. Each of them has a range of about a mile. There are no other tornado sirens anywhere else in DeKalb County.
What do those sirens mean? Who are they intended for?
According to EMA Director Parker, tornado sirens are meant to warn people outside to seek shelter inside immediately.
“If you’re outside and you hear those sirens, you know something’s up,” said Parker. “They’re not intended to reach you indoors. They’re specifically intended for people outdoors — if you’re outside your home, if you’re at a park,” explained Parker
For years, an activated tornado siren could have meant a tornado threat for anywhere in a specific county, but that blanket approach to alerts led to siren fatigue. As a result, weather experts created a new polygon model to be more accurate.
“A polygon means a smaller, more precise area of a warning, so they can now narrow it down to a specific neighborhood or street or things like that, so you may have a warning in a small neighborhood, a small part of Smithville, without affecting all of the city,” Parker said.
“Our tornado warning system located at the 911 center is activated through the National Weather Service. When they issue a warning for an area, it goes through a third party which sets off the warning siren system. Its all automated and not triggered locally,” he added
To enhance safety during times of severe weather, EMA Director Parker urges people in Smithville and DeKalb County to take advantage of another service called Hyper-Reach, a state-of-the-art mass emergency notification system, designed specifically for public safety. Through Hyper-Reach residents can get automatic tornado warning alerts over landline telephones or cell phones the moment they are issued for DeKalb County.
Landline phones are automatically registered but weather alerts to mobile phones are only included by enrolling in the system.
“This system will notify hundreds of people within a minute. It is very fast in the notification process, and I encourage everyone to sign up for this,” said Parker.
The service is free, and you may register for the weather alerts by visiting www.dekalb911.org and clicking the link.
“There is a link on the 911 website (dekalb 911.org) to click for a community weather alert sign up. It will allow you to register a cell phone. If you do have a home landline telephone your number is already registered by your house number in the system and you will automatically get the weather alerts without any further action from you. If you do not have home landline telephone service or if you want to register your cell phone in addition to your home landline phone you can go to the signup page and do that. It will make a phone call to you with a pre-recorded message and or it will also send you a text message or an email to notify you as well in the event there is a tornado warning that has been issued for the affected area,” said Parker.