The Cherokee County Emergency Management Agency is always looking for improved and more reliable ways to keep the citizens and those visiting Cherokee County safe, especially during severe weather events.
Back in the 90’s outdoor weather sirens were a popular warning system that alerted people of approaching severe weather events such as tornado warnings. In order for those sirens to go off someone had to go to the Cherokee County Emergency Operations Center after a warning was issued and activate those sirens by entering a code on a keypad. The signal would then travel over radio waves to the sirens which would activate them.
As time has passed and technology has emerged, outdoor weather sirens have become outdated and unreliable. The radio frequencies have become congested which causes interference. With interference comes unreliability and failure, not to mention the age of the sirens. The majority of the parts for the sirens are not manufactured anymore and that creates a huge problem when trying to maintain them. Many of the parts needed to repair the existing outdoor sirens have not been manufactured since 1998. The average cost of installing a new outdoor siren is approximately $26,000.
Cherokee County has a total of 16 outdoor sirens and currently 6 of those are inoperable and need to be replaced or repaired. There are no grant funds available for repairing or replacing the sirens which means the responsibility falls on the individual counties. While attending meetings across the State I have talked with other EMA Director’s about what steps they are taking and how they are maintaining their outdoor sirens. The answer from many of them seems to be the same, they are not. Outdoor sirens have become a thing of the past. It seems the stance that many counties are taking is they are not putting any more money into an old and outdated system that is no longer reliable. It gives the citizens a false sense of security. The outdoor sirens are not designed to be heard indoors and most of the time if you are more than a half mile away you may not hear them even if your outdoors.
Cherokee County EMA is looking into the possibility of maintaining a few of the existing outdoor sirens if they are around the lake or heavily populated campgrounds and outdoor areas but not maintaining the others. Instead, we are exploring the option of purchasing NOAA weather radios and starting a program to issue those to the elderly, persons with disabilities or special needs, and people who have poor cell phone coverage at home or no landline or internet service.
If you have a landline and/or cell phone there are programs and weather apps available that will provide you with much more reliable notifications when it comes to severe weather events such as the CodeRED system and the Baron SAF-T-Net app. Most if not all of the weather apps like the WBRC First Alert Weather app and the ABC 33/40 Weather app provides quick and reliable severe weather notifications as well.
Our goal is to provide the citizens with the most reliable and effective way to receive advanced notifications to protect themselves, their family and loved ones, and their property. Please check our facebook page often for updates as we continue to explore these new ideas and possibilities.
