Questions about sirens and shelters answered

As the winds of Friday night’s tornado died down, Butler County swirled with questions. How many storm shelters does Poplar Bluff have? Did one really lose its roof during the storm? Why didn’t all the tornado sirens go off?

Butler County Emergency Management Agency Director Robbie Myers had answers.

Firstly, he said, Poplar Bluff has one FEMA-designated shelter for the general public, located at O’Neal Elementary School.

“The only FEMA shelter considered a community shelter is at O’Neal, and that one opened,” Myers said.

Despite punishing conditions, the shelter suffered only mild damage.

“The membrane of its roof was ripped off. The building did its job and people were safe, but the tornado ripped right through there,” he added.

O’Neal and Poplar Bluff Junior High School both have FEMA safe rooms, however, only one is available for public use. Poplar Bluff School’s Communications and Marketing Director Tim Krakowiak explained why.

“In order to qualify for a FEMA safe room grant, the facility has to serve a certain number of people. O’Neal only has about 400 students plus staff, this is not enough to quality for a FEMA grant. We had to designate that a FEMA safe room for the neighborhood,” he said.

“The junior high is different because there are 800 students and about 100 staff, so the population is enough for us to have qualified to receive the FEMA money for the shelter. And since it’s not a neighborhood school, it’s for the students.”

Three Rivers College also had contingencies in place for students and others on campus. The tornado arrived the same night as a Lady Raiders game, Myers said, and the school was prepared to shelter spectators in the Libla Family Sports Complex basement.

A basement is the safest place for sheltering at home, Myers explained. The next best option is an interior room with as many was as possible between oneself the outside as possible.

“If you have a friend or family member, you can go to their basement, that’s more secure,” he advised.

Butler County’s tornado sirens are tested constantly, Myers said, so it was “very concerning and baffling” to realize some of the county sirens remained silent as the tornado approached. Inspections finally revealed the answer.

“Yesterday we discovered what the problem was — the antenna responsible for sending the signal was struck by lightning,” he explained. “It must’ve been struck during the (broadcasting) cycle, because some of the sirens went off.”

The antenna is located on White Oak Drive and only triggers county sirens, not Poplar Bluff sirens. The Poplar Bluff siren antenna was undamaged.

Myers said Craig Meador, Poplar Bluff Severe Weather Response Team director, used a technical workaround to get the antenna operational yesterday.

“We’ll have to get a new antenna and we’re working on that process, but it’s all operational,” he said.

The incident underscores a frequent point Myers makes: “We always encourage people to have multiple ways to receive alerts.”

Ideally, residents should have both an app and a weather radio. Neither is perfect, but together they make a reliable severe weather safety net. Apps only work as long as Wi-Fi remains active, while weather radios have redundancies to prevent signal loss unless multiple stations go down.