Tornado sirens are about to go bye-bye in Mobile County

By TYLER FINGERT

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    MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) — Tornado sirens are about to go bye-bye in one area of South Alabama. On Wednesday, the Mobile County Emergency Management Agency announced that the outdoor warning sirens will soon stop operating.

“The sirens are an outdated technology used during the Cold War,” said Anthony Lovitte, President of the Mobile County Emergency Management Agency Authority Board.

That is one reason why the Mobile County Emergency Management Agency Authority Board decided to phase out their 47 sirens.

Lovitte says cost also came into play.

“We would almost have to spend $2 million just to get the current sirens repaired and back up to a standard that we could think they were reliable and that only covers 10% of the county,” he said.

To fill the gap, the EMA would have to add about 250 more sirens to provide good coverage in the county. That brings the total cost to about $15-million and that does not include maintenance.

“The one way we looked at it is we can put a siren in your pocket,” Lovitte said. “We can put the siren in your hand so you can get the alert 24 hours a day 7 days a week no matter where you’re at.”

Officials have told people for years not to rely solely on tornado sirens in an emergency, especially if you are inside. Each siren only has about a 1-mile radius.

Jason Beaman from Mobile’s National Weather Service Office says some good alternatives are weather radios and emergency alerts on your phone.

“Our point is always the same is to have multiple ways to get warning information,” he said. “In case one system fails you want to have a backup.”

Over the next two years, the EMA says they are going to gradually phase out the sirens, but a few will stay in Downtown Mobile.

Not only are the sirens costly to keep up, the technology is old.

“We want the warnings to be directed to who needs it the most,” Lovitte said. “We don’t need a waterspout at Dauphin Island alerting Citronelle, we need to alert the people that are involved in the incident.”

This decision only applies to Mobile County sirens, not privately maintained sirens.

Some of the alternatives to tornado sirens are emergency alerts, weather radios … and our FOX10 News app.

Mobile County residents are strongly encouraged to engage more precise and efficient means of receiving location-based emergency alerts including:

– FREE Mobile County EMA app (available through the Apple App Store or Google Play)

– Follow Mobile County EMA on Facebook (@MobileCountyEMA) or Twitter (@MobileA1EMA)

– FREE Alabama SAF-T-Net app

– FREE Mobile County Communications District alerts app

– Enable smartphone wireless emergency alerts

– NOAA weather radios

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