Butler County has used a new system three times in the last two weeks that was designed to speed up how quickly storm sirens sound.
The first was March 31, when a storm system that had already set a tornado on the ground at Little Rock continued its path across northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri, said Butler County Emergency Management Agency Director Robbie Myers.
The other two times were in the early morning hours of April 5, when another round of severe weather moved across Butler County before setting a twister on the ground in Bollinger County that killed five people.
As the residents of Glen Allen begin discussions of what access, or lack of access, to tornado sirens means, Butler County has been able to improve its system twice in the last two years.
“Butler County Commission and Butler County Emergency Management Agency are committed to making sure our sirens are in proper working order because we know that they save lives,” said Myers, who also cautioned the sirens are an outdoor warning system and should be one of many ways residents use to stay informed. “We encourage everyone to have multiple ways of being warned, including weather radios with batteries. And there are several apps available for (your) devices. You can set the types of storms and geography you want to be alerted for.”
Butler County’s newest update to the storm sirens allows the alert network to sound automatically as soon as the National Weather System issues a tornado warning.
He and the Poplar Bluff Severe Weather Response Team spoke to commissioners about purchasing the program, Myers explained.
“It saves time in getting the message out, rather than getting the warning and then (manually) hitting them,” he said. “We’re very excited the automated system works for us.”
The sirens can still be manually set off from the Butler County Sheriff’s Department and are tested monthly, Myers said.
The county also received $50,000 in grant money in 2022 to do maintenance and upgrades to the sirens that were separate from the automatic sounding program, he said.
This year marks a decade since Butler County added sirens to cover what officials said at the time were all of the major population centers of the county.
Then-Butler County EMA Director Jeff Shawan watched the installation of a siren at Walton Chapel that was within sight of damage still visible from the devastating Pine Cone Estates tornado. It was an eerie experience, he shared at the time.
It had taken 11 years from the date of the tornado for a siren to be set at the location.
The Whelen siren was estimated to have a range of five miles, officials said then.
It can be hard to estimate how far away a resident will be able to hear the sirens, Myers cautioned. The noise of the area, for instance, when train horns are sounding, wind, weather and other factors play a part. If someone is inside, how well insulated and sealed the structure is can also impact how well the sirens are heard.
He stressed residents should make sirens one of many ways they get storm warnings.
New storm sirens cost between $24,900-$44,400, Myers said.
The county’s current sirens include solar panels and batteries, to ensure they are operational in a power outage. The county ensures there is regular maintenance and used the 2022 grant money to replace and upgrade parts, he said.
City and county storm sirens are located in the following areas:
County — Fisk; Broseley; Qulin; Neelyville; Highway 158 at the water tower; Butler County Highway Department; highways B and AA; Batson Minifarms; Pine Cone; Oak Briar; highways T and RA; Stringtown; Walton Chapel; and Marble Hill Road.
City — Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center; Cedar and Moran streets; 11th Street and Highway 53; PP and Westwood streets; Link Park; Main and Gray streets; Poplar Bluff Industrial Park; and Three Rivers College campus.
Posting a comment requires free registration:
Menu
