Police, radios, cell phones, but no tornado sirens on list of Lubbock's severe weather warning systems.
By Adam Young
With spring and severe weather season approaching in the South Plains, some are questionsing local government's plans to warn citizens of potential severe storms and tornadoes.
Kathleen Finley, emergency management assistant with the City of Lubbock, said the city has emergency management procedures in place to warn citizens when severe weather strikes, including National Weather Service StormReady certification and a network of communication procedures.
However, Finley said the city's warning system does not include tornado sirens.
But Jennifer Huckabee, vice president an of Texas Tech student chapter of the American Meteorological Society and a graduate student from Denver, said she believes tornado sirens should be a critical element of the city's storm warning system.
Huckabee said her group is in the process of gathering signatures for a letter to present to the Lubbock City Council to raise attention and convince the council of the city's need for tornador sirens.
"The biggest deal with sirens is to alert people outside, playing outside, gardening, walking, something outside, that severe weather is coming, that a tornado is coming and they need to take shelter immediately," she said.
But Finley said she believes tornado sirens are generally not as affective as alternative methods of communications sucha as NOAA weather radios.
"(NOAA weather radios) are a much better safeguard, where with outdoor warning sirens, they're outside and you're likely not to hear them," she said. "That's why we really promote the NOAA weather radios because that, by far, is the best system."
Unlike tornado sirens, Finley said, weather radios have the benefit of sending a text message alerting the viewer of the specifics of the emergency.
"When those alarms go off, you not only get the alert that something is going on," she said, "you get the message as to what is going on, if you need to seek shelter and what to do."
Finley said anohter benefit of weather radios is that, unlike most televisions, most NOAA weather radios have backup batteries if power fails.
"If something happens in the middle of the night when most people don't have their TVs on, it wakes you up," she said.
But Steve Cobb, science and operations officer with the National Weather Serice in Lubbock, said tornador sirens offer benefits that weather radios in a person's home could not.
"If you’re outside at a public event or a soccer field," Cobb said, "you will not receive it as somebody would if they were in their home or school or business so the more varied ways the better for the public and that includes storm sirens.”
Acknowleding NOAA weather radios' limitations, Finley said the city's StormReady certification would provide a solution to people being away from tradtional sources of notification.
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