Emergency management in Mid-Missouri: Local officials discuss severe weather strategies
COLUMBIA, MO (KMIZ)
Earlier this month counties across Missouri participated in a statewide tornado drill. Boone, Callaway and Cole counties told ABC 17 News that they did not find any issues with their outdoor warning sirens.
As severe weather rolled through much of Mid-Missouri on Thursday, local officials braced for having to use those sirens, though they ended up not having to use them.
“As important as those statewide tests are we’d really like to see people do more planning and more drills on their own,” Jake Waller, the Deputy Director of Boone County Office Of Emergency Management said. “The statewide drill, which is a great great thing (that) only happens once a year during severe weather preparedness week. If we can push out to people to make a plan, have a couple of ways to get notified, and have an emergency kit with at least 72 hours of water, food, medications, anything you might need. If we can push that out and have people practice that on a more regular basis, we would definitely have people more prepared.”
The Office of Emergency Management watches the weather as part of its day-to-day operations. Once something significant such as a warning or a watch pops up the planning process to brace for the storm begins. This includes conference calls to figure out staffing, alerting local elected officials, and posting warnings on social media.
Boone County's Office of Emergency Management has a staff of seven-to-nine people. Any time severe weather comes through, it establishes a rotation of staff members to operate the Emergency Operations Center.
“Right now there are two of us that are monitoring the situation but if it was something that was a little more severe a little more dire we might have the entire staff. We would also pull in some external stakeholders to help us kind of prepare for and get ahead of any emergency situations,” Waller said.
Boone County has more than 100 warning sirens scattered throughout the county. However, Waller said oftentimes residents fall into the trap of thinking the warning sirens can be relied on if they are inside their house.
“Those are really only supposed to be used for folks who are outside,” Waller said. “That’s just not something to rely on so we like to tell folks to have at least one other type of communications system.”
Waller says good options are a weather radio or signing up for emergency alerts on ready.boonmo.org.
According to Waller it is up to each municipality in the county to provide storm shelters but there are designated public buildings that people can seek shelter in during severe weather.
“It’s really more important for folks to have a safe place to go within their house or if they live in a location like a mobile home or something that isn’t really as secure, to have a family friend or somebody close by that maybe does have a more sturdy structure that they can go to.”
Holts Summit is one of the cities in Callaway County that has a storm shelter. City Administrator Brandon Ruedinger told ABC 17 that the shelter opens when a tornado warning is issued. Ruedinger says that two on-duty police officers respond to the storm shelter to “open” it until he and additional staff arrive.
Storms rolled through Mid-Missouri on Thursday and a tornado watch was issued for most of the area.
Ruedinger and Waller added that they rely on National Weather Service warnings when deciding whether or not to trigger the warning sirens. However, Waller added that the county also relies on first responders such as law enforcement and trained weather spotters to feed them information once the storms begin to roll in.
“It’s really more of a whole community approach than just relying on one source of information,” Waller said.
Ruedinger said he can activate Holt Sumit’s sirens remotely, which can save several minutes and allow for additional warning time.
“In the past, our sirens would not be activated until our dispatch center receives the actual warning through their MULES terminals,” Ruedinger wrote in an email to ABC 17 News. “This new technology has proven we can reduce the activation time and provide quicker warnings.”
There were 73 power outages reported for Ameren customers in Callaway County near Holts Summit on Thursday afternoon; which were mostly resolved by 3 p.m. Waller says that Boone County's Emergency Operations Center has multiple fail-safes in place in case of a power outage.
“We can withstand a Joplin-level tornado coming right over the top of our building,” Waller said. “We have two generators that can power us for two weeks without any sort of refueling and we also have a battery backup.”
Once a storm has rolled through, local officials then begin to assess the damage. Boone County tabulates damage reports, which include downed power lines, trees across the roadways, damaged houses or structure fires that may have occurred, and sends them to the state emergency management agency to track.
