Power outage to blame for tornado siren not activating in Pilot Grove as storms arrived Wednesday

PILOT GROVE, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Cooper County Emergency Management Agency says a power outage is to blame for a tornado siren not activating before an EF-2 tornado touched down in Pilot Grove on Wednesday morning.

The siren -- described as a "Cold War-era siren" -- that sits on the Pilot Grove water tower and solely relies on electricity. It is the only one of its kind in Cooper County, according to CCEMA.

"Electricity was out before the siren were even activated because the tornado was already hitting before we got word that the tornado was in the area," Director of CCEMA Larry Oerly said. "The tornado was already hitting before we got the word the tornado was in the area."

The agency said it called the siren - which is the way they activate it -- once they learned about the warning. But, the siren it didn't work. Oerly said the agency followed its protocol and tried to set the siren off again.

"It would have been around six to eight minutes and we did not know it had not gone off the first time," Oerly said. "It is our policy during a tornado warning, we'll set them off the first time soon as we received the warning and we follow that up between eight-to-10 minutes with setting them off again as long as we are still under the warning,"

Oerly said he is unsure if the second attempt at activating the alarm was successful.

CCEMA says there are a total of 12 battery-powered siren in Cooper County. The agency must call dispatch to set the siren off.

While Pilot Grove does not have a battery-powered siren, Orerly sais one is on the way after he requested a grant to purchase one. He expected the new siren to provide more reliable warnings during severe weather.

"It will be battery operated it will work off radio frequency as all of our all siren in the county work, so basically we send a tone out from out dispatch center to the sire and it activates," Oerly said.

The cost of the new siren is about $26,000, Oerly said, and is expected to be installed at the end of April or early May. Oerly said it will be a quick install and will be put on a pole next to the Pilot Grove City Hall.

He said it will be louder than the current siren and will cover Pilot Grove and part of the area around the city.

Resident Brittany Grayson-Ballew said she was traveling to Columbia for work when she found out about the tornado warning through Facebook. She said her home was damaged after a tree fell on it.

"Elderly people, you know have a hard time getting to their basements in time, so having that warning is important for them so they get the assistance that they need," Grayson-Bellew said.

Officials said it is important to remember outdoor sirens are meant to warn people who are outdoors, and you should not solely rely on a siren to be warned of severe weather. Oerly urges everyone to use other warning systems.

 "Get a weather radio, a second thing is be weather aware, all you news stations put out weather alert days," Oerly said.

Oerly said more than 10 homes were damaged in the tornado but the cost of the damage remains unknown. No injuries were reported.