Emergency sirens vary by county in Indiana, creating confusion during storms
(WISH) — Indiana sets standards on where emergency sirens are to be placed, suggesting one siren for every 2,500 people, how loud are they, and how people should be able to hear the alarms a mile and half away.
The sirens are not designed to be heard inside.
Bob Johnson described the tornado that hit his neighborhood on June 25. “We heard the sirens repeatedly. I don’t think we heard one before the tornado hit.”
He said storm sirens were active all afternoon, which created some confusion. “The issue with the sirens is they go off for thunderstorm warnings, and they had gone off three or four times Sunday for that, so you tend to disregard. They need to have a different tone or different pulsation if it is a real emergency as opposed to a lightning strike.”
At 4:13 p.m., a tornado packing gusts of more than 100 mph came over their house.
How and when the emergency sirens are activated during severe thunderstorms and tornadoes varies from county to county in Indiana. Johnson County doesn’t activate the emergency sirens for severe thunderstorms.
Mike Pruitt of the Bargersville Fire district in Johnson County said, “We used to, if we had a severe thunderstorm warning and a tornado watch at the same time, were activating the sirens. One of the problems that developed with that is it wasn’t consistent with the counties around us, so sometimes it left people confused on whether there was a tornado or what the situation was. So, we changed that about a year ago to where only a tornado warning issued by the National Weather Service would cause the activation of our sirens or a weather spotter.”
When a tornado warning is issued in Johnson County the emergency sirens countywide are activated because, as Pruitt points out, tornados can change direction.
Boone, Hamilton and Hendricks counties, which along with Johnson also are in the Indianapolis metropolitan area, activate emergency sirens for tornado warnings only in the warning area.
Indianapolis and Marion County activate emergency sirens for tornados and severe thunderstorms with winds in excess of 60 mph. A storm warning on the north side of Indianapolis will not activate sirens on the south side.
Statewide, it’s the responsibility of individual counties to sound alarms.
The National Weather Services issues the warnings; it doesn’t activate the emergency sirens.
Pruitt said, “There is some responsibility. It is not totally on the emergency management agencies across this state or public safety in general, everybody has to take some responsibility in this to keep themselves safe.”
Emergency sirens plus cellphone alerts and weather radios can alert people to severe weather. The WISH-TV weather app offers cellphone alerts to give plenty of warning when severe weather is nearby.