“There’s been a lot of debate about tornado sirens. They’re a great tool in the toolbox for alerting people, but they’re very expensive,” said Jay Wiggins, director of the Glynn County Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.
Indeed they are expensive. Chatham County paid around $25,000 to purchase and install each of its 62 sirens. That is before maintenance costs are considered.
Glynn County does have a system called Thor Guard in some parks to give advance warning for thunderstorms, and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center has its own siren. But outside of those, officials must rely on other methods to alert the public. They are not alone.
“We’re what we call area eight for the (Georgia Emergency Management Agency), (which is) every county on the coast and one county in. Out of that group of counties there are two that have tornado sirens, Chatham and (the city of) Rincon, in Effingham (County),” Wiggins said. “A lot of communities are going away from them. Because they’re expensive to maintain, they’re expensive to install.”
The reason they’re not more widely used is due to more than just the cost. One of the those reasons is population density. While a siren might reach a good number of people in the more dense parts of the county, each siren would reach fewer people the further inland you go.
“The city of Brunswick would be a great place for sirens. Dock Junction would probably not. When you start getting into the rural parts of the county they won’t be as effective,” Wiggins said.
Another issue would be the public’s reaction to them. Having to hear them on a regular basis, the public might get used to them and not react with the urgency they would need to.
“I’m not pro- or con-siren. I think they’re a great tool, but people can become immune to them because we would have to test them weekly,” Wiggins said.
Using them in places where a lot of people gather but may not have immediate access to other forms of warning, like TVs, radio or cellphones, has been discussed.
Chatham County places them near where people are most likely to be away from their phones. Dustin Hetzel, Chatham County’s chief of communications and warning, said they focus on parks, beaches, baseball fields, schools, anywhere where someone might not have their phone on hand or might not be able to hear it.
“They alert you when you’re sitting on you back porch and you don’t have your phone on you, or you’re watching your kids at a ball game, or relaxing in the park,” Hetzel said.
Wiggins said that would be a good idea, but it would require money and planning on the county’s part and may still not be as reliable of a warning for every individual as a radio or cell phone weather app.
“The beach is a place we’ve talked about using the sirens, but when you go up and down the beach, you might have 200 people at Massengale (Park) and 20 at Coast Guard (Beach). Where would you put that siren? One at every beach access? It takes a lot planning,” Wiggins said.
However Hetzel said that, given the advancements in smart technology and the ever-increasing ubiquity of social media, single-hazard sirens might soon be phased out altogether. He had faith that what he called all-hazard sirens would replace them. Tybee Island uses such sirens, the more expensive option of voiced sirens.
Voiced sirens come at a cost from $30,000 up to the low $40,000 range in total from purchase to installation, making them an even more unlikely proposition for Glynn County, especially considering some county commissioners have recently talked about increasing taxes or cutting services this year.
The voiced sirens do open up the opportunity to use them for a wide variety of warnings, however. They can be used for tornadoes, hurricane evacuations, severe storms and even active shooters.
Wiggins said sirens require so much maintenance that other options, such as a weather radio or GEMA’s Ready Georgia app, would be more reliable options for the general public. He also recommended following his agency’s Facebook page, which is titled Glynn County EMA and Homeland Security, for steady updates on emergencies.
“If it’s something the public wants us to do or the county commission wants us to do, we’ll look at it and get some facts and figures,” Wiggins said.
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