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Tornado sirens say goodbye in Mobile County | Alabama Mobile County News


MOBILE, Ala (WALA) – Tornado sirens prepare to say goodbye in an area of ​​South Alabama. On Wednesday, the Mobile County Emergency Management Agency announced that outdoor warning sirens will soon cease to function.

“The siren is an outdated technology used during the Cold War,” said Anthony Lovitte, Chairman of the Mobile County Emergency Management Authority.







Tornado siren

That’s one reason why the Mobile County Emergency Management Authority decided to remove their 47 sirens.

Lovitte says cost also plays a role.

“We’re going to have to spend almost $2 million just to fix the current sirens and get them back to a standard where we can think they’re reliable and only cover 10 percent of the county,” he said.

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

“One way we look at it is that we can put a siren in your pocket,” says Lovitte. “We can put sirens in your hands so you can get alerts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week no matter where you are.”

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

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

“Our view has always been that there are ways to get alert information,” he said. “In case a system fails, you want a backup.”

Over the next two years, the EMA says it will phase out the sirens, but a few will stay in Downtown Mobile.

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

“We want the alerts to reach the people who need it most,” says Lovitte. “We don’t need an aqueduct on Dauphin Island to alert Citronelle, we need to alert those involved.”

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

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

Mobile County residents are encouraged to use more accurate and efficient means of receiving location-based emergency alerts, including:

– FREE Mobile County EMA App (available through 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 alert app

– Enable wireless emergency alerts on smartphones

– NOAA weather station

Copyright 2022 FOX10 News. Copyright Registered.





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