After months of work, St. Joseph County emergency management officials are almost done upgrading their early outdoor warning siren system. They’re no longer calling them “tornado” sirens.
If you hear the sirens over the next few weeks, technicians will be testing after receiving their first major overhaul since their installation in 1998.
The county is updating its existing 67 sirens and adding five new ones with $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan money. They plan to add three more near the new Amazon and GM battery plant sites with property tax money from the tax incremental financing district there.
When it’s all done, county emergency management director Al “Buddy” Kirsits says the county will have one of the best systems in the state.
”Some counties are a bit fragmented," Kirsits says, "because they started maybe with a volunteer fire department had one siren, then a little town had their siren, but we’re fortunate here in St. Joe County ours are unified under one command and control, which is huge.”
They’re no longer calling these “tornado” sirens because next year they hope to activate a feature that sends out a different sound to alert people to non-weather emergencies like acts of terrorism, mass shootings or hazardous material disasters.
“That’s an emergency but it’s not a weather emergency. Get to your phone, look it up, get to the media, find out what’s going on. Not that we’re trying to be scary but we want to maximize what we do.”
