- Jackson County recently upgraded its siren control system.
- County Emergency Dispatch Director Jason Hamman says they're still finding hiccups.
- Vendors are en route this week to Jackson to resolve issues before the next wave of weather mid-week, says Hamman.
- WATCH THE VIDEO for a look at Dispatch and comments from a neighbor and County emergency officials.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
As Sunday night's storm demonstrated, you may not want to be relying solely on sirens like the one behind me for weather warnings.
Some of my Jackson neighbors are saying they didn't hear sirens until the storm was on top of them or had passed.
"We always recommend that the public has multiple ways of receiving notifications about severe weather," says Corey Kubik, Director, Jackson County Emergency Services and Homeland Security.
"The first alert I got was from my phone," says Jackson neighbor Erika Zamora.
For those of us on the East Side of Jackson, like Zamora and me, Sunday's tornado warning came on our phones at about 6:15 p.m.
"I was down in the basement for probably a good 15 minutes before I heard tornado sirens going off," says Zamora. "And, by that time, the storm was practically over."
I saw Jackson neighbors discussing the delay online, so I decided to find out what might have happened.
Our sirens are activated from the County's Emergency Dispatch Center. Director Jason Hamman told me that they upgraded systems last year, and two sirens glitched the first time they were activated Sunday evening.
Hamman says this one behind me at Queen of the Miraculous Medal School and another one in Henrietta did not sound when Dispatch got the warning and flipped the switch.
When he found out the new system had glitched, Hamman called dispatch, they were reset, and went off at 6:31 p.m.
Hamman says the vendors responsible for the siren signals are coming ahead of the next wave of weather this week to service the sirens.
County emergency officials also recommend against relying solely on sirens.
"Our 'Genasys' alerts, which you can receive for free. Citizens can sign up through mijackson.org ....also, the emergency alert system — the wireless emergency alerts — I recommend that everyone have those turned on on their phones," says Kubik. "Should one fail, you have back-ups, essentially."
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