LJWorld.com

geekin_topekan (Anonymous) says…

whenever a kind stranger donates a dollar or more to a homeless man is when the sirens should sound.

Confrontation (Anonymous) says…

“Even now there are people who pay no attention to the sirens whether they hear them or not,” he said.

Yeah, so lets not sound them and punish everyone for those who are too stupid to pay attention.

JerryStubbs (Anonymous) says…

THere are some strong arguments to default sound the sirens whenever their is an official tornado warning, and then more after that.

If somebody gets hit in the head with a 2x4 they don't care what kind of wind tossed it.

ksdivakat (Anonymous) says…

I will just say this:
“But during last Thursday’s emergency management committee meeting only two local residents showed up for a discussion despite advance publicity about the meeting.”

So one could assume that people were on here just to be fussing and didnt really care about sirens…typical from alot of these bloggers.
Another thing to mention is the siren malfunctioning, this is why you cannot rely on the sirens, you have to take personal responsibility, the sirens can and do malfunction alot! Proof is saturday night, the siren sounded on Overland Park…but no tornado, and the flip side of this is that they tried to sound the sirens but they didnt go off.
Please get a 30$ weather radio and keep you and your family safe.

hawkperchedatriverfront (Anonymous) says…

The county needs to get together with KANU and both be on the same side of the tornado. If KANU is getting information to take cover,from whom are they getting it?

BigPrune (Anonymous) says…

“Even now there are people who pay no attention to the sirens whether they hear them or not,” he said, from personal experience.

JerryStubbs (Anonymous) says…

I think they should automatically sound them if there is a geniune tornado warning just to make sure they are working (maybe the wind might knock one out).

JerryStubbs (Anonymous) says…

Here's a clue why more people didnt show up at last weeks meeting (I'm still not straight on which night it really was).

This is the article annoucing it in the ljworld, and it says the meeting is 'Wednesday”. The date of the article is MAY 8, which was Thursday.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/may/08…

Moderateguy (Anonymous) says…

I did purchase a new weather radio. Take the damn sirens down. You have already squandered any naively given public trust about sounding them. They're nothing more than ugly public art now. The sad truth is, the only thing I can count on my government to do is steal my money.

rodentgirl16 (Anonymous) says…

Or perhaps, in addition to the date being wrong, as noted by JerryStubbs, since the meetings are held at 8:00 am, they all but preclude anyone who actually works from attending. I would have liked to have gone, but I would have felt weird telling my boss that I was going to be late to work because I was going to this meeting. He doesn't live in Douglas County, I don't work in Douglas County, and I seriously doubt he would have much sympathy. People not showing up to an 8 am meeting doesn't NOT equal lack of public interest, it most likely indicates an inability to attend due to work or school.

yankeelady (Anonymous) says…

When the NWS issues a warning, sound the sirens. And work on a system to only sound them in the affected area not the whole county. If the storm is headed toward Lecompton, Baldwin doesn't need the sirens to go off.

dsmith84 (Anonymous) says…

If the sirens are not sounded until after a tornado touches ground, it may be too late for some people.
Sound the sirens when the weather service issues a tornado warning, as this indicates the highest level of local risk to the public.
It seems to me with the recent prevalence of damaging straight line wind events, these sirens should not be called “tornado” sirens… but rather “storm sirens” or something of that nature. When the weather conditions are most dangerous that is when the weather service issues Tornado warnings. Even if 90% of the time these strorms did not produce tornadoes they are producing damaging hail and winds and lightning strikes which are all risky situations to be in. It is in the best interest of the public to be informed of times when very strong storm conditions are present and the benefits of taking shelter outweigh the annoyance of getting out of bed at 3AM. Just ask the people of Greensborough, or the more recent victims in Oklahoma and Missouri.

ASBESTOS (Anonymous) says…

Seems like this “Emergency Management Agency” forgets the whole reason for being…..

That would be preparedness. That means BEFORE and prophilatically. Take this siren wail instead of a 2 x 4 upside the head.

These idiots are in charge of emergency prepardness???!!! Strike a delicate balance? With Public Health on an event that either wipes a town off the map, or most usually 90% of the time misses the populated area. As they say, it only takes wrong once to show stupidity. Sounding the sirens is necessary, but need to be isolated as the previous poster stated. You don't set them off for the whole county, only the effected areas. In DFW metro you can track the storms coming through by the doppler like effect of the sirens stalking across the Metro area, coming closer, then fading off preceding the storm.

That is what the “big boys” do. Where ya at there Lawrence? In the “Kansas Triangle”?

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/30_…

Tis true, with short sighted people with small minds.

kuwxlady (Anonymous) says…

hmmm let's see, everyone had a TV to watch to know of the approaching storm, be prepared! If you don't have TV, get a weather radio. Always be prepared for weather when it's moving in! geez it's not hard people! You can't depend on sirens to go off, sadly, but true. So stop whinning and get prepared! We do live in “Tornado Alley”. And also, everyone on here as a computer…has access to radar…NWS website…so when severe weather is coming be prepared!

Moderateguy (Anonymous) says…

You're doing a heckuva job Brownie, I mean Teri….

mommaeffortx2 (Anonymous) says…

yes people have tv, radio, internet but most people are trying to sleep at 1 or 2 in the am and tornadoes are not the easy to spot at this hour. Sound the sirens when a warning is issued the whole point is to give people an extra few minutes to get safe.Most people I know are not up watching the sky at 1am.

mommaeffortx2 (Anonymous) says…

Asbestos that article is so wrong in so many different ways but made me laugh thanks.

KSA_21_3503 (Anonymous) says…

I posted this elsewhere:

The policy should read something like:

“If the NWS issues a tornado warning for Douglas County or the Emergency Management Duty Officer on duty determines there is a tornado threat or some other immediate need for warning because of a severe weather threat in Douglas County, then the siren system shall be activated. This determination is only to be made by Douglas County Emergency Management staff in the event that NWS has not issued a tornado warning, and will be based on the evaluation of all available information. This may include, but is not limited to, National Weather Service watch and/or warning text, weather radar and reports from trained weather spotters or law enforcement officers.

Douglas County has the capability of activating all of the sirens at once or more selectively by activating one or more of the six siren zones. All sirens are sounded unless the threat is clearly confined to an individual zone(s). The sirens will be sounded for three minutes initially, and then intermittently throughout the warning period as needed. There is NO “all-clear” siren.”

And, fire Bob Newton.

KSA_21_3503 (Anonymous) says…

“I will just say this:
“But during last Thursday’s emergency management committee meeting only two local residents showed up for a discussion despite advance publicity about the meeting.”

So one could assume that people were on here just to be fussing and didnt really care about sirens…typical from alot of these bloggers.”

The fact that it was at 8:00am had a lot to do with the low turnout. Most people who would be coming to the meeting to discuss this have to work.

Multidisciplinary (Anonymous) says…

Please, everyone remember to stay away from the water in your house when there's a storm.

A 14 yr old girl in Topeka was struck by lightning while taking a shower during the storm last Sat. It came sturck her house, and came through the water pipes.

She was able to walk out the door, then she collapsed. She's recovering in the hospital, but they say she won't be out for 2 weeks while they do tests to confirm she's okay. It took a while, but she started acting normally.

I was struck a couple of years ago, when I reached over during a storm to pull the fabric vertical blinds aside to see the weather. At that moment, it struck somewhere around here, came down the blinds, down that arm, across me to my laptop on my lap, back into my knee and down to my foot/floor.

KSA_21_3503 (Anonymous) says…

“Interstingly, your proposal still leaves the decision up to the on-duty EM officer. Hmm, isn't that what it is now?”

No, if you bothered to actually read it, you will see that it explicitly removes the decision from the on-duty EM officer in the case of an NWS issued tornado warning. That is the whole point.

melott (Anonymous) says…

I was one of the two people who came to comment at the last meeting (8 am). It is interesting that the committee itself could not conduct business because there were not enough of them to make a quorum.
When indoors, we are supposed to rely on weather radio. However, in Lawrence we are in an area of weak, unreliable signal:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/states/kansa…
at my house, I can get the stations—but only when the weather is good!

del888 (Anonymous) says…

Lets have somebody drive up and down the streets in the 'T' buses with a microphone yelling 'tornado, tornado!'.
At least the buses would get some use. – Actually I think they should sound the sirens about 10 minutes before the storm is going to hit my house.