Cities across North Texas usually have a routine of when and how to regularly check outdoor emergency sirens. NBC 5’s Larry Collins has the details.
When a deadly tornado hit Valley View in Cooke County last month a malfunction prevented firefighters from activating emergency sirens.
Cities across North Texas usually have a routine of when and how to regularly check outdoor emergency sirens.
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WATCH HEREIt has already been a destructive and deadly spring storm season in North Texas and sirens are getting a workout.
Fort Worth manages 159 sirens for the city and surrounding communities.
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SIGN UP Fort Worth Emergency Management Coordinator said the sirens are tested every week, but those are silent tests to make sure the computers are able to communicate with the sirens at a moment’s notice.
Then on the first week of every month, they do an audible test so that anyone outside can hear it.
“Our parameter is if it's more than 30% overcast based on the information that the National Weather Service puts out, we will not sound them,” Deea Elliston-Scully said. “Because we don't want people to think that there's something going on based on the fact that it's overcast.”
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“We used to test it audibly every week, but then you start dealing with warning fatigue,” Elliston-Scully added. “The people get complacent with hearing it.”
Emergency officials are able to trigger the sirens from remote computers if something were to happen in the middle of the night and they aren’t able to get to the office.
Fort Worth is testing a new system that connects the National Weather Service and the outdoor warning sirens. Part of testing is cyber security.
In 2017, someone hacked into the Dallas sirens and set off all 156 of them in the middle of the night for more than an hour.
