Outdoor Weather Siren System: Irritant or Life Saver?

Looks like we’ve got potentially more wet stormy weather heading our way this Wednesday. But that should come as no surprise as April has been a record-breaking month for tornadic activity.

With that in mind, Smyrna Fire Chief Jason Lanyon took the opportunity recently to review Smyrna’s outdoor weather siren system.  And if you live in the area, you know it's been going off a lot lately.

“We set the sirens off under three different sets of circumstances,” Lanyon said. “The first one is a tornado warning, the second one is actually a sighting of a tornado or a funnel cloud by a credible source and the third one, which is the most common of all, is if we’re under a tornado watch.”

The National Weather Service defines a tornado watch as conditions favorable for the development of severe thunderstorms producing tornadoes in and close to the watch area within 12 hours.

Lanyon explained that sirens are set off more frequently for tornado watches because they usually apply to a wider area than tornado warnings and sightings.

“Most of the time if we’re under a tornado watch it’s all of North Georgia, usually several counties, 50-something counties usually,” Lanyon said. “If we’re under a tornado watch and we receive a severe thunderstorm warning then we evaluate what severe thunderstorm actually caused that warning because Cobb County is a pretty good-sized county. If that thunderstorm is up on the other side of Kennesaw Mountain, we won’t trigger the alarm system, but in our opinion if that storm is coming through Smyrna, then we will activate the weather siren system.”

The alarm system in place in Smyrna is an outdoor alarm system designed to alert citizens who are outside during severe weather to come inside to seek further information from other media. The city's 10 sirens project sound at a level of 70 decibels, which might be irritating to some, but to others it's viewed as a potential life saver.

“We always try to err on the safe side,” Lanyon said. “I’d rather somebody say to me that they got woken up because they heard the sirens and nothing happened then they say to me they got woken up because they didn’t hear the sirens or they didn’t go inside and the roof come off the house. So we try to err on the safe side and sometimes we’re wrong, but we’d rather be on the safe side.”

Smyrna’s outdoor weather siren system was updated in 2008. The new system is tested hourly by computers in addition to the tests conducted the first Wednesday of every month.

Lanyon also advised Smyrna residents to sign up for Nixle alerts. This free service alerts participants of severe weather warnings through text messages and emails.

Councilwoman Teri Anulewicz, Ward 3, receives Nixle alerts.

“It’s not every time there’s a siren,” Anulewicz said. “But it was very helpful at 2 o’clock in the morning to know why exactly the siren was going off and whether or not we needed to wake the kids up and drag them downstairs. Nixle was wonderful.”

Residents interested in receiving Nixle alerts can sign up here.