Tornado sirens? (Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax: earthquake, safe, moving to)

[terrence81]

Originally Posted by South Jersey Styx

Nah, don't need sirens to set off a panic. Around here, just turn on the news!

Again as someone who grew up with sirens. I don't think they inspire panic.

For me its quite the opposite. The sirens were used a lot so they inspired complancy. I've never paniced. In fact I've slept right through some of them. The last time I was in a real torando back in 07 I was working at TJ Maxx. I remember this little teenager was crying and I was all like don't cry its probably nothing. I'm practically rolling my eyes at her. Little girl crying over nothing why did I get a job with teenagers? Turns out it was an awful tornado that had touched down like half a mile from the shopping center. I stopped being so complacent after that.

But yeah I don't think sirens neccesarily inspire panic if you're used to hearing them. Particularly if you're used to hearing them and nothing actually happens.

[smithy77]

Sirens work. Although I'd already left Omaha, it experienced the most expensive tornado in history (up to that time) in 1975. It pretty much cut the city in half (imagine an F-4 tornado ripping down Rt. 7 for 10 miles or so). Only 3 people were killed----people there know what to do and they had plenty of warning. Of the 3 people killed, one was a deaf elderly lady who didn't hear the sirens, and another guy climbed up on his roof to watch the thing (?). Another reason the fatality rate was so low------almost everyone there has a basement, something most people don't have in places like Texas and Oklahoma.

[cdmurphy]

Originally Posted by Fundman

There is maybe 1 or 2 tornadoes every 10 years in the Washington area. The last real one was in La Plata, Maryland in 2002. The tiny threat doesn't warrant sirens.

Wrong. Northern Virginia had multiple tornadoes in 2011. We have also had them in previous years. Just because they are not major events doesn't mean that they don't happen, or that there isn't property damage, or that you won't freak out when you're sitting in your office along the Toll Road in Herndon, watching a funnel cloud moving up Route 28.

OP, you live near me, and we sometimes get tornadoes out here. Sign up for Loudoun Alert.

[ersatz]

Fundman - cdmurphy's right, we get a lot of tornadoes in our area, though nothing like the counts in Tornado Alley. For the past ten years (up to 11/30/2011), we have had 311 in Virginia and 102 in Maryland. Of course, most of these range around F0 to F1 but we have larger ones occasionally: the F4 you mentioned in LaPlata in 2002, as well as an F3 in Faquier in 2004.

Outside of the ten year span, we had an F4 in Frostburg in 1998 and an F4 in Culpepper in 2001. Luckily, most of these had minimal deaths and injuries due to excellent weather reporting on radio and TV (locals do pay attention to this in tornado weather). Outside our area, down by the Naval Station in Portsmouth, a 2008 F3 tornado injured 200 individuals.

Tornadoes within the city limits of Washington D.C are rare (partially due to the small area footprint). Weatherbook.com has a picture of one that passed by the Washington Monument in 2001 Severe Weather and Tornadoes - Washington Area (http://www.weatherbook.com/tornado.html - broken link). It later became an F3 that tore through College Park. The link is dedicated to some of the more notorious D.C. metro tornadoes.

One tornado that is not mentioned there is a fascinating one. Few people realize that a Washington D.C. tornado played a key role in U.S. History. In the War of 1812, the British invaded Washington and tried to burn it to the ground. They torched the Treasury, the White House, the Capitol and many other buildings. The fires could be seen as far as Baltimore. Heavy thunderstorms swept in the next afternoon, spawning one or more tornadoes that swept through the Northwest, (present day) Georgetown and Capital Hill. The tornado picked up the British soldiers, their horses and their cannons and tossed them around. The appalled British fled back to their ships anchored in the Patuxent that very night as driving rains accompanying the tornado extingued the fires. The British Commander later reported that more of their soldiers were wounded and killed by this catastrophic disaster than from all the firearms the American troops could muster in their ineffectual defense of Washington.

[SeeingJane]

Warrenton has one. It used to be what called the volunteers to the fire house, but now that they do that another way the sirens are used for emergencies...including tornado alerts. Every Saturday they set it off at about the same time, just to make sure it works. And I have heard it go off when severe weather was coming.

[vermonter16]

Imagine being stuck in gridlock and the sirens going off...people would be running everywhere or crashing into one another. Look what happens with the threat of a couple of inches of snow? In this area....I think sirens would cause more problems.

[South Jersey Styx]

Originally Posted by terrence81

Again as someone who grew up with sirens. I don't think they inspire panic.

For me its quite the opposite. The sirens were used a lot so they inspired complancy. I've never paniced.

Well, that's your personal experience. But imagine everyone else AND in area like this? My point was that we don't need a siren to cause a panic -- there are many other variables that already do that in this area.

Vermonter16 pretty much hit it on the nose:

Originally Posted by vermonter16

Imagine being stuck in gridlock and the sirens going off...people would be running everywhere or crashing into one another. Look what happens with the threat of a couple of inches of snow? In this area....I think sirens would cause more problems.

One of the latest mishaps -- the earthquake last August 2011 (originating in Mineral, VA) was evidence of this. Were you in downtown DC when this happened? If so, there's no need to describe how people were behaving . . .

[NC211]

Originally Posted by cdmurphy

Wrong. Northern Virginia had multiple tornadoes in 2011. We have also had them in previous years. Just because they are not major events doesn't mean that they don't happen, or that there isn't property damage, or that you won't freak out when you're sitting in your office along the Toll Road in Herndon, watching a funnel cloud moving up Route 28.

OP, you live near me, and we sometimes get tornadoes out here. Sign up for Loudoun Alert.

Thank you cdmurphy, this is exactly what I was looking for! Excellent recommendation. Signed up both my iphone and my wife's.

As someone who has seen the eye of 5 hurricanes in his life (lived in Wilmington, NC in the 90's), when it comes to severe weather, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a big ole' baby! Lightening is probably the worst of my fears, as it's so random and quick. Tornadoes scare the mess out of me too! Hail, scares my auto insurance policy...

[pamnbam]

I just moved to AL, and two days into my new home we had tornado warnings all day. I found the Weather Alert USA app by Softpeas LLC on the iPhone and downloaded it that day. We, too, were worried about waking up if we need to in the middle of the night, but this app is AWESOME!

You enter your zip code, set it to the types of alerts you want to be notified for (mine is set for just tornado warnings, but there are thunderstorm, winter storm,fire warning, Amber alerts, etc.), make sure you allow for push notifications on your phone, and voila! Every time a tornado warning is issued or updated by NOAA, I get notified on my phone within seconds, sometimes earlier, than that on my weather radio. The notification sounds just like the EAS alert tone on tv/radio, is super loud, and the volume can't be turned down (you can only turn it off if your phone is on vibrate). You can also set the timer within the app to make it go to silent mode between the hours you want, but that defeats the purpose of being alerted at night. There are also weather maps and other weather information that can be helpful for tracking the path of storms. The app costs $9.99, but don't let that deter you. It's well worth it for peace of mind!

[Fundman]

The tornadoes from 2011 you cited were very minor. A small funnel maybe touched down for a few seconds. No injuries or deaths. Still doesn't warrant sirens.