Oklahoma Media - Weather Coverage

[Buffalo Bill]

I'm in Oklahoma County and in Oklahoma City aknd sirens did not blow in my area at any time today. I'm not sure I understand what you said. Are you saying that the city of Oklahoma City can dictate that the sirens go off in all of Oklahoma County, even in areas not in Oklahoma City?

Oklahoma City activates their sirens in whichever county that they are in that is under a tornado warning.

Parts of Oklahoma City are in Oklahoma, Canadian, and Cleveland counties, if not any additional counties.

http://www.okc.gov/tornado/

Conceivably, there could be a tornado in far NE Oklahoma County traveling to the NE, and OKC will sound all of their sirens that they have within Oklahoma County, even in far SW Oklahoma County.

[ljbab728]

Oklahoma City activates their sirens in whichever county that they are in that is under a tornado warning.

Parts of Oklahoma City are in Oklahoma, Canadian, and Cleveland counties, if not any additional counties.

http://www.okc.gov/tornado/

Conceivably, there could be a tornado in far NE Oklahoma County traveling to the NE, and OKC will sound all of their sirens that they have within Oklahoma County, even in far SW Oklahoma County.

I understand all of that but that's not what SoonerDave said. He said OKC stated that they sound sirens in all of Oklahoma County.

Someone on Twitter asked CityofOKC to explain their rationale, and their reply was that policy dictated they blow sirens in ALL of OK County for a TW in Cleveland County.

[Buffalo Bill]

I understand all of that but that's not what SoonerDave said. He said OKC stated that they sound sirens in all of Oklahoma County.

Oops, my bad. He mentioned Moore schools.

I assume OKC sounded their sirens that they have in Cleveland County. I also assume that he was referring to some Moore schools in both Oklahoma City and Cleveland County.

Btw, I don't like the policy either. Too much calling "wolf".

[ljbab728]

Oops, my bad. He mentioned Moore schools.

I assume OKC sounded their sirens that they have in Cleveland County. I also assume that he was referring to some Moore schools in both Oklahoma City and Cleveland County.

Btw, I don't like the policy either. Too much calling "wolf".

Perhaps you missed this post I made in the general weather thread. I think it is a very sound policy and I have no problem with it.

For those who don't like the local policy about sounding sirens in Okla. City.

http://www.okc.gov/news/2015_05/Torn...an_in_OKC.html

“Think about a busy parent hearing sirens at their office in north Oklahoma City where the weather seems fine, but their teenager is home alone on the south side and might be in danger,” said Emergency Manager Frank Barnes. “Our policy is to sound sirens everywhere in the City, no matter where the tornado threat is, so people know to seek more information about the weather and decide what protective measures they need to take.”

[Jim Kyle]

Conceivably, there could be a tornado in far NE Oklahoma County traveling to the NE, and OKC will sound all of their sirens that they have within Oklahoma County, even in far SW Oklahoma County.

Not just "conceivably" the case. Last week, the sirens in my area -- 3/4 mile from the Canadian county line and barely within the Putnam City school district -- sounded not once, not twice, but at least four times during the course of a single afternoon. The warnings were for storms moving east out of Midwest City into Pott county!

I no longer pay much attention to the sirens, other than to check my TV, tablet, or phone to see a radar display and find out where the storms really are. They've cried wolf far too often for me to take them seriously any more.

EDIT: What could Barnes' hypothetical executive far removed from the scene do to help the teen stranded at home in the danger area? Leave work and rush home to add to the traffic jam? I have all sorts of problems with Barnes' position; sorry, ljbab!

[woodyrr]

The City of Oklahoma City has 181 outdoor warning sirens and the policy is to sound all of them or none.

Oklahoma City has a state of the art, computer controlled, electronic outdoor warning siren system. Software is available from several sources including the siren vendor, Whelen Engineering, to automatically identify the tornado warning polygon issued by the National Weather Service and to select those sirens within and immediately adjacent to the polygon for activation.

I disagree with the systemwide activation policy as I believe it causes unnecessary alarm and confusion as well as increasing complacency among the publics including those, like myself, who are in range of the system but not a resident of OKC.

[Anonymous.]

Keep in mind, just because you hear sirens, doesn't mean they are for you. They are usually high enough off the ground to easily travel long distances. Just think of the sirens as the spark to make you check on what's going on.

[SoonerDave]

Perhaps you missed this post I made in the general weather thread. I think it is a very sound policy and I have no problem with it.

You might think differently if you were an elementary school teacher trying to calm the nerves of a classroom or school of needlessly terrified children.

I understand the need to provide ample warnings. But we have a responsibility to mitigate the "collateral damage" as well. That's the problem. Didn't say it was easy.

As far as my original post goes, the Twitter exchange I saw was from @CityOfOKC.

[SoonerDave]

“Think about a busy parent hearing sirens at their office in north Oklahoma City where the weather seems fine, but their teenager is home alone on the south side and might be in danger,” said Emergency Manager Frank Barnes. “Our policy is to sound sirens everywhere in the City, no matter where the tornado threat is, so people know to seek more information about the weather and decide what protective measures they need to take.”

Mr. Barnes position is broadly unsupportable. For Heaven's sake, you could extrapolate that rationale to blowing the sirens in Tulsa for a storm in Minco because a mom attending a day-meeting in Broken Arrow might be worried about a storm in Tuttle that might threaten their kiddo in Blanchard.

You cannot create infinitely perfect warnings, and this "scorched earth" policy of blasting the sirens everywhere *has* to be revisited. It *cannot* continue in its present form.

We constantly hear that the sirens are for "people who are outdoors," yet we hear rationale like that of Mr. Barnes which clearly runs counter to this. We have too many interpretations about what the sirens are supposed to do versus how people act when they sound off. Again, I don't believe there is a defense for blowing sirens in OKC for a storm a) 30-plus miles away and b) Moving away. And I surely don't believe there is a defense for a policy that - as I noted - pointlessly terrifies children (and educators, for that matter) in a public school setting on the basis of a rationale provided by Mr. Barnes. Public schools necessarily have to react to a worst-case scenario - they've got to assume an F5 is on the way and likely won't have the luxury of turning on the local TV to find out the sirens are irrelevant. That highlights the "impedance mismatch" between siren expectations and reactions.

The sirens are either intended for people outdoors, or their intended to get EVERYONE to do something. You just can't have it both ways.

My apologies if I seem harsh or black-and-white on thisk, or if my opinions offend those involved in the warning process. I don't like to be this way. But when my wife comes home telling me how she had to try and calm a room full of kindergarteners who were put into shelter-in-place mode for a storm that posed absolutely no threat whatsoever is symptomatic of a system that is broken. I won't pretend the solution is simple, but rationalizing the current system surely isn't among them.

[ljbab728]

Well we will just have to totally disagree then. I have never heard anything official about the sirens just being for people outdoors and I would always opt for the better safe than sorry when it comes to our children.

[SoonerDave]

Well we will just have to totally disagree then. I have never heard anything official about the sirens just being for people outdoors and I would always opt for the better safe than sorry when it comes to our children.

In this case, safety of children was not even remotely at issue. Not one single child in the OKC area was at the slightest risk from that storm. That's the problem.

We really don't disagree about warnings per se, ljbab. I want our children protected, too.

[jn1780]

Doesn't really matter since its not like it happens every day or every year. This is all just about liability issues. The city doesn't have its own team of weather forecasters so it relies on the Federal government( NWS) to issue the warnings and they do it by a county by county basis. Its a slippery slope once city officials start deciding which areas of the city to not include when sounding tornado sirens.

[SoonerDave]

Doesn't really matter since its not like it happens every day or every year. This is all just about liability issues. The city doesn't have its own team of weather forecasters so it relies on the Federal government( NWS) to issue the warnings and they do it by a county by county basis. Its a slippery slope once city officials start deciding which areas of the city to not include when sounding tornado sirens.

Now I will respectfully take issue with that. This issue of inappropriate or unneeded siren warnings DOES, in fact, occur every year and has already occurred this year. IMHO, the "liability" notion is a cop-out. They are, in fact, deciding where to warn when they decide to launch ALL the sirens at once, indiscriminately. Also, a city such as OKC has an emergency management team, and it doesn't take a team of PhD meteorologists to see that a storm is a) distant from a city and b) moving away from that city to decide "that storm poses *zero* risk," and as such the sirens aren't warranted.

As Jim Kyle pointed out earlier in the thread, we are already at the point where abuse of sirens is causing people to start ignoring them. I know of folks who are already telling stories like "Oh, I live in XXX, so when they blow the sirens, I ignore them because I know it's really for YYY." That's precisely what we don't want to achieve, and is precisely why this policy has to be revisited. We have to use the information at hand as intelligently as possible, and right now, we're not doing that.

[LocoAko]

Doesn't really matter since its not like it happens every day or every year. This is all just about liability issues. The city doesn't have its own team of weather forecasters so it relies on the Federal government( NWS) to issue the warnings and they do it by a county by county basis. Its a slippery slope once city officials start deciding which areas of the city to not include when sounding tornado sirens.

This isn't true and hasn't been for years. The NWS now issues polygon warnings, which can affect all, part, or none of a county. Here is an example from yesterday down in southwest Oklahoma:

[jn1780]

As Jim Kyle pointed out earlier in the thread, we are already at the point where abuse of sirens is causing people to start ignoring them. I know of folks who are already telling stories like "Oh, I live in XXX, so when they blow the sirens, I ignore them because I know it's really for YYY." That's precisely what we don't want to achieve, and is precisely why this policy has to be revisited. We have to use the information at hand as intelligently as possible, and right now, we're not doing that.

That's because he said he is already on his tablet or phone. Your saying the average person in Oklahoma being isn't going to be curious to what's going on when sirens are going off in the middle of the day in Spring?

[SoonerDave]

This isn't true and hasn't been for years. The NWS now issues polygon warnings, which can affect all, part, or none of a county. Here is an example from yesterday down in southwest Oklahoma:

Perfect demonstration of having the proper information in hand. Loco, would you happen to have a snip from any one of those tor warns from Purcell around 3pm yesterday? I'd like to see the polygon for it if you happen to be able to find it.

[jn1780]

This isn't true and hasn't been for years. The NWS now issues polygon warnings, which can affect all, part, or none of a county. Here is an example from yesterday down in southwest Oklahoma:

I know about polygon warnings, but the weather radio would still go off for everyone in that county. the specific coordinates would be difficult to convey over a radio or text based system.

[SoonerDave]

That's because he said he is already on his tablet or phone. Your saying the average person in Oklahoma being isn't going to be curious to what's going on when sirens are going off in the middle of the day in Spring?

Which is precisely why the sirens must be fired more intelligently. We are adapting a 1950's-era technological concept used originally as civil defense warning sirens for nuclear attack, and that model doesn't reconcile very well with the much finer-grained information we have available now.

[LocoAko]

Perfect demonstration of having the proper information in hand. Loco, would you happen to have a snip from any one of those tor warns from Purcell around 3pm yesterday? I'd like to see the polygon for it if you happen to be able to find it.

Here ya go -- the two tornado warnings issued for that storm.







Edited to add: Forgot one, as woodyrr pointed out.

I know about polygon warnings, but the weather radio would still go off for everyone in that county. the specific coordinates would be difficult to convey over a radio or text based system.

This is true. I'm not sure of the actual protocol for how people know when to issue warnings. But I was in Norman at the time and heard no sirens despite us being even closer to the Tornado Warning, so there's clearly a way to not sound the sirens unilaterally if any part of the county is in the warning. It is hard without the actual city boundaries but I'm pretty sure not even the far SE reaches of OKC were ever in a Tornado Warning yesterday as they only reach NW of Pink. If it did, it was by a couple feet of the SE OKC reaches.

[woodyrr]

This is not the first tornado warning issued for the Purcell cell, but it is the first warning that might have clipped a tiny sliver of Oklahoma City.

At the very least, Oklahoma City's siren policy could be modified to restrict siren activation to the county for which a tornado warning is issued. At least siren activations would be synchronized with NOAA weather radio which schools should already have.

[woodyrr]

LocoAko beat me to the warning post and I cannot effectively edit mine.

See a my post above about software available for OKC's siren system that would limit siren activation to TOR polygons.

[SoonerDave]

LocoAko beat me to the warning post and I cannot effectively edit mine.

See a my post above about software available for OKC's siren system that would limit siren activation to TOR polygons.

That's awesome information. Thanks guys. I think what we have here is the framework to improve this kind of warning for everyone involved. This is precisely the kind of smarts we need to attack this kind of problem!!!

[woodyrr]

Here is just one versatile system including polygon based activation that is specifically designed to compliment Whelen Outdoor Warning Siren systems (the manufacturer of OKC's sirens). There are others to be sure.

Unfortunately, despite negative feedback from Oklahoma City citizens, Oklahoma City's Emergency Management Director, appears to have planted his stake firmly in concrete and does not appear to be inclined to move it. As I don't live in OKC, I can fuss, fume, and provide information, but I don't have a say.

WeatherWarn - Warning At your Fingertips!

[Jim Kyle]

Your saying the average person in Oklahoma being isn't going to be curious to what's going on when sirens are going off in the middle of the day in Spring?

No, we're saying that the average person is NOT going to be interested the third time the siren sounds in a single afternoon, when the first two times it was for storms 30 miles away from him and moving away. And that that third time, which he ignores, is for a different storm just 5 minutes away from him and approaching rapidly.

Granted that usually there are other warning symptoms such as increased cloud cover and lots of lightning, but not always. Teaching the public to ignore the warnings is very poor policy.

[SoonerDave]

Here is just one versatile system including polygon based activation that is specifically designed to compliment Whelen Outdoor Warning Siren systems (the manufacturer of OKC's sirens). There are others to be sure.

Unfortunately, despite negative feedback from Oklahoma City citizens, Oklahoma City's Emergency Management Director, appears to have planted his stake firmly in concrete and does not appear to be inclined to move it. As I don't live in OKC, I can fuss, fume, and provide information, but I don't have a say.

WeatherWarn - Warning At your Fingertips!

But as someone with the information and credibility to provide relevant information, you contribute a great deal to the discussion.

What's going to have to happen is that OKC citizens who are providing this negative feedback are going to have to become more organized and more forceful in the expression of their sentiments. This is a city of its citizens.

Polite, respectful letters to both Mayor Cornett, your local city council representative, and to the Emergency Management Director expressing the concern and providing alternatives and options such as those discussed here are precisely what must be conveyed on no uncertain terms. I haven't written a letter to the Council in a few years. I think it's time to fire up the ol' word processor again

Engaging organizations such as the NWS, particularly in light of their "Living With Extreme Weather" project (that I quite incidentally started an article here the other day) might prove an opportune time to change the course of OKC weather warnings and responses. The days of blaring an entire county or counties into a warning mode when it isn't necessary, especially when we have so much better quality warning information, simply must come to an end.