Each town or city handles the activation of its warning sirens with its own protocol. Anderson, Elwood, Alexandria and Pendleton all have access to activate sirens, while Chesterfield and Lapel do not.
David Eicks, Anderson (Ind.) Board of Works chairman, said the city tends to activate the siren when it receives a severe weather alert from the National Weather Service. He said the city, however, doesn’t activate the siren for every severe thunderstorm warning.
Todd Harmeson, director of Madison County Emergency Management Agency, said Anderson Police Department will generally sound the siren when there is a severe thunderstorm warning at the same time as a tornado watch, since severe storms can make tornadoes more likely. During Thursday's storm, Madison County was under both a severe thunderstorm warning and a tornado watch.
Eicks said a severe thunderstorm warning can warrant the sound of the siren without a tornado watch, but only under certain circumstances, such as high winds.
“Straight-line winds like (Thursday morning) can be dangerous with trees as well,” Eicks said.
Ray Novak, public information officer of Anderson Police Department, said conditions for sounding a siren are a tornado warning in the area and when immediate evacuation is required due to hazardous materials or another disaster. The other time the siren is activated is when a severe thunderstorm warning is in place and a there are severe circumstances, such as very high winds, hail of 1-inch in size or greater.
Novak said sounding the siren is not limited to the basic criteria the department follows. The department alerts the central dispatch center for the county in extreme emergencies.
Elwood, Pendleton and Alexandria can activate their own sirens, and it often is a judgment call, officials said. Sirens can be activated if there’s a tornado watch, but they will always be activated if there is a tornado warning.
Madison County EMA does not generally tell agencies when to activate the alarms. When any severe weather watch or warnings are announced by the National Weather Service, EMA will announce it over the police scanner to help in making the siren-sounding decisions, said Harmeson.
The only time EMA will specifically recommend towns and cities sound the siren is when a trained storm spotter or law enforcement professional sees rotating clouds or other imminent signs of a tornado.
When Anderson sounds the siren, a siren is also automatically sounded in Chesterfield, Edgewood and Green Township, Harmeson said. Since Lapel is located on the westside of the county, the town is alerted by a siren automatically when Hamilton County sounds sirens.
Harmeson said Madison County was fortunate more damage wasn’t created in the strong storms Thursday morning.
“Storms came out of the Chicago area, laid a path of destruction through state of Indiana with quite a bit of damage,” he said.
Reporter Christopher Stephens contributed to the report.
———
©2016 The Herald Bulletin (Anderson, Ind.)
Visit The Herald Bulletin (Anderson, Ind.) at www.theheraldbulletin.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
