One thing that can save your life if a tornado strikes is a community warning system. Especially emergency sirens that alert you of a serious storm headed your way. 7&4’s Kate Fox looks at what counties in northern Michigan actually have a siren system in place.
Wexford County Emergency Manager says, "Those sirens in the populated areas are just one more way of building in some redundancy in our warning system. They might not be right for every county but for Wexford County I feel it fits our needs."
Benson says between Cadillac and Manton they have 5 tornado sirens that have been there since the 1950's.
Benson says, "Early warning signs save lives – there are studies that if you get warning out 4 to 15 minutes – a 40% loss of life can be prevented."
Both Boyne City and East Jordan in Charlevoix County each have one siren to alert community members Margo Oleniacz lives in East Jordan and says, "It works, if you’re outside your not watching the TV and you’re not maybe hearing the radio so it’s very important something like this..."
Four years ago Otsego County chose to replace its traditional sirens with a reverse 9-1-1 system. Now residents get a call either at home or on their cell phone alerting them of severe weather threats.
Otsego County Emergency Manager Mike Thompson says, "Within about five minutes I can have a message built and the system set to send to specific people or the entire county."
It may be surprising but Grand Traverse, Leelanau, and Benzie Counties have no warning systems in place. They rely strictly on TV and radio to get the word out.
Grand Traverse County Emergency Manager Daniel Scott says, "It's a dollar and sense thing with sirens if we were to place sirens throughout the city I wouldn't even want to estimate what that costs it would be quite a burden."
