Sunday was a horrible day in the lives of some Mississippians. Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes rolled through the Southeast, bringing destruction and causing one death in Crawford. Homes were destroyed, lives were lost and recovery will be a long and arduous task. Today, funerals and remembrances are wrapping up and people are now trying to put their lives back together. As tragic as this event was, it allows us to examine how the warning system works and why some people die because they do not get warnings. Before going further, allow me to briefly explain the way weather warnings are issued. Local National Weather Service offices are staffed with several meteorologists who are responsible for issuing warnings. Once a warning is issued, weather radios-available for an inexpensive purchase almost anywhere-automatically activate with a voice reading off the details of the warning. Also, television meteorologists air the warnings and often provide extra details in their visual presentation of the situation. Also, outdoor weather sirens sound a loud warning to alert people outdoors of the impending danger.
Soon after the tornadoes moved out of the Southeast, ABC’s “World News Tonight” ran a story about people in the central Alabama community of Carbon Hill. In their story, the reporter stated that the injured and killed people did not get the warning. The reporter slanted his story to make it seem as though the warning system was directly responsible for the deaths of these people.
This could not be further from the truth. The weather warning system worked flawlessly on Sunday night. The National Weather Service issued timely and accurate warnings and the broadcast media did their part in communicating these warnings to the public.
The only problem was the fact that some people rely on outdoor sirens to get word of bad weather.
This is a common misconception that is often aided by politicians seeking to make an impression on a vulnerable public after a weather disaster.
Again, weather sirens are only in place to warn people who are outdoors and have no other way of getting the warning. They are NOT intended to be heard inside your home. If you can hear the weather siren indoors, it is simply misfortune on your part that the weather siren is too close to your home. The government is wasting money covering every county with innumerable weather sirens.
The answer is weather radio. Available almost anywhere for less than $50, these radios will sound an alarm at any time of the night to wake people and alert them of impending bad weather.
But our politicians seem to think it looks better if they can cut a ribbon on a brand-new shiny tower with a huge siren at the top of it. Government logic, an oxymoron in most cases, is clouded by consultants telling politicians what will make them look good in the eyes of the voting public. One weather siren costs more than $10,000.
For that price, a couple hundred weather radios could be bought and placed in the homes of people who live in tornado-prone areas, which includes almost all of the United States.
Josh Johnson is a junior broadcast meteorology major.