Outdoor Warning Sirens - Some Clarity
Saturday, July 14th, 2018 -- 6:26 AM
For those that may have been confused about Thursday afternoon’s outdoor warning sirens as severe storms move in, Clark County Emergency Management Director, John Ross, has provided some clarity.According to Ross, the protocol is that when a Severe Thunderstorm Warning is issued local Fire Departments/EMS are paged and advised of the warning as well as on duty Law Enforcement. There are outdoor sirens at Russell Park in Hatfield and at Rock Dam that are programmed with “thunderstorm warning” voice messages that would also be activated during a severe thunderstorm warning. Local Fire/EMS/Law Enforcement can request sirens be activated in a community if they observe threatening weather or a possible tornado.
There are also 4 storm shelters which were constructed in 2012. These shelters are in mobile home parks in Neillsville, Town of Pine Valley and City of Loyal as well as a shelter at ADS in Greenwood. Dispatch can unlock those shelters remotely via radio which is also done. For a Tornado warning again, Fire/EMS and Law Enforcement are notified and the outdoor warning sirens in the communities in/near the warned area are activated and the 2 voice sirens at Russell Park and Rock Dam are activated with their respective “Tornado warning” voice messages.
The storm shelters described above are also unlocked. Based on current protocols the outdoor sirens, with the exception of the two voice sirens as described above, should only be activated for a tornado warning or if requested by local officials as described above. John encourages people to have multiple methods to receive alerts including local TV/Radio, NOAA all-hazards radios or telephone alerts such as the Nixle program that Clark County has in place. A link to register cell phones to receive text messages is on the Emergency Management page of the Clark County website
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.