4am siren...that was interesting... (Huntsville: how much, home, crawl space)

[NicoleC]

I had left the storm shelter door open (it's a trap door in my master bedroom that leads to a shelter under the house) because it was forecast to be a rough night. I had thought about sleeping in the storm shelter last night and almost got out the air mattress, but I decided I was being paranoid. Then I though about sleeping in the master bedroom last night -- I don't normally... it has too many doors and windows or something, and I just don't sleep well in there -- and I shook my head and told myself to stop being so sensitive. I should have listen to my intuition.

I woke up about 1 minute before the alarm went off and I don't know why, but I had an extra minute to get oriented. Then the alarm went off and they said there was a tornado in the ground in Moulton, just a few miles SW of my house. Yikes!

I told the dog to "Shelter!" and she ran for her kennel in the shelter as trained. (She thinks it's a game and she gets a cookie at the end.) I grabbed the kitten and cell phone and checked the usual spots for the other cat and ran through the house to the shelter. Fortunately, the other cat was napping down there, as she often does when I leave the door open, so I shut us in and anxious turned on the other radio down there.

Turns out the tornado missed me by a couple of miles to the west (I think) and I never heard a thing; I had less storm and wind here than I usually do when things pass through. It headed mostly north instead of northeast it seems, before straightening up and heading over to Madison. I don't think this particular one touched down again. I did keep an eye on the stuff developing in Cullman County for a bit before going back to bed; it was unlikely to head due north but hey, the other went more northward than normal.

No siren out here; I have a good weather radio. I wouldn't go without one.

I have decided, however, that I need a TV down in the storm shelter. NOAA reports are great but you can't SEE the map and the updates tend to be far apart, and I don't know most of the tiny little towns they reference. I spent a lot more time down there than I needed to just because I couldn't figure out where it actually was.

We had a tornado warning here before I built the shelter; I feel much better with it around.

[NicoleC]

Originally Posted by zenjenn

I think it's just as well if my kids aren't woken up and frightened unnecessarily. No doubt though another siren will be added where I am.

Why do they have all the sirens set up to go at the same time in the whole county? Obviously they do not respond to the same frequency as the weather radio because the city sirens didn't go off until 10 minutes or so after my radio did. If someone is manually setting them off you think they'd have the county divided into quadrants or something.

Usually NOAA issues watches and warnings for whole counties, I assume that's what triggers it. Maybe some guy has to go push the button to turn them on -- or a bad software interface that isn't real-time. 10 minutes delay could be way too late.

Sometimes they get more specific in the warning, but usually you just have to listen to them say where exactly it is.

I finally forked out the extra dough for a weather radio that I can program in on a specific area and also turn off certain alarms. I do NOT need an Amber Alert waking me up in the middle of the night, thankyouverymuch. The other ones would go off all night long as the storm tracked through north AL and into Tenn and I spent too many sleepless night over Thunderstorm Warnings! The new radio is well worth it.

[Southlander]

Originally Posted by zenjenn

Why do they have all the sirens set up to go at the same time in the whole county? Obviously they do not respond to the same frequency as the weather radio because the city sirens didn't go off until 10 minutes or so after my radio did. If someone is manually setting them off you think they'd have the county divided into quadrants or something.

I believe the head emergency dude or dudette for each county determines when to hit the sirens. There was some controversy not too many years ago in a nearby county about tornado damage and injuries where the head dude was hesitant about cranking up the sirens. And I know plenty of times warnings have been issued and our sirens never went off.
The TV stations here have their own Dopplers and do their own forecasting, so there is some variation among NOAA, TV, etc. There's a lot of art to it...as well as science.

[jakesgrandma]

NicoleC--what brand/model of weather radio did you end up getting? Sounds like it was a really good investment. Thanks!

[Deano]

Anyone hear of damage in Tuscumbia?we have a house there but are in Florida now.

[zenjenn]

Mine is like Nicole's, but you can only have it set to go off for "watch" or "warning". If "warning", the alarm goes off only for warnings BUT it includes severe thunderstorm warnings as well as tornado warnings. I didn't see any way to set it to go off only for tornadoes.

When we first moved here we had it set for "watches", but a few months of having it set like that wised us up. I wish the area setting was more specific but the code we got from the manufacturer's web site seems to go off for anything in Madison County.

One thing I read in the news today is that those sirens are not designed to wake people up. They are designed to warn people who are walking/driving outside to take cover. People in their homes should have a weather radio.

[FCEddie]

What brand name is it? Where did you find it?

I'm heading down this weekend and might grab one asap

[rnc76]

Originally Posted by zenjenn

One thing I read in the news today is that those sirens are not designed to wake people up. They are designed to warn people who are walking/driving outside to take cover. People in their homes should have a weather radio.

They may not be "designed" for it, but I tell you what, a 140 dB siren screaming 1/4 of a mile away is a pretty darn good alarm clock.

[NicoleC]

I have a Midland WR-300. I was cracking up scrolling through the possible alerts to turn off some of them... Iceberg Warning?!

The S.A.M.E. technology is area specific and lots of radios have that. But this is the only one I found where you could disable specific event types.

It retails at $80 but I got mine from Amazon for about $50... who I notice is running mighty low on weather radios today. Wonder why?

[zenjenn]

They may not be "designed" for it, but I tell you what, a 140 dB siren screaming 1/4 of a mile away is a pretty darn good alarm clock.

I was talking to people from my mother's group and I was surprised how many people told me they slept through the sirens. People who live on the main HSV side of the mountain.

I think it just depends how close you are to a siren. That map shows a circular "coverage" area, and if you are on the edge of what is considered "coverage" maybe you can't hear it, especially if there is loud rain/thunder/wind in the mix.