Sounding the alarm during fall severe weather season
How to stay informed
LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)- While most people associate severe weather with the Spring, here in North Mississippi we know any season can be severe weather season.
One thing you should always keep in mind is how to stay informed when severe weather hits.
And in this case, more is better.
For many people, emergency sirens are the first alert that severe weather is coming.
Lowndes County EMA director, Cindy Lawrence says it’s important that they’re kept up to date.
“Tornado sirens are important, especially for people who are outside working. That’s basically what is made for alert the person working and don’t have any way of receiving notifications sirens were made strictly for them,” Lawrence said.
But in some counties, tornado sirens are not operating properly, which can leave people who rely on them vulnerable.
That’s why the professionals who watch the weather, like WCBI’s Chief Meteorologist Isaac Williams, say it’s important to have more than one way to get your information.
And technology has made that even easier.
“But what if one of them fails? What if one of those methods that you normally rely on suddenly stops working? And that’s why we always have multiple ways to get a warning here, so it’s fair to ask that everyone else also have multiple ways to get warning information because you never know when that extra tweet or that extra alert on your smartphone can be enough to potentially save your life and property,” Williams said.
And Meteorologist Williams says there are other ways you can stay connected.
“You can have your emergency notification turned on, that would be the same as if you get an amber alert. For example, if you get those alerts, that’s the same type of way that you can get tornado warnings and things like that. And also your favorite app, the WCBI news app, or just a weather radio app,” Williams said.
And while tornado sirens may be old tech, they are still helpful to the community.
“And we tell people if you do not hear a siren in your area please call us and tell us the siren is not working so we can get the siren repaired before a disaster comes here in our county,” EMA Lawrence said.
Of course, if there is severe weather in the area, our WCBI weather team will keep you and your family updated.
In the case of tornado warnings, our meteorologists will break in with live coverage that you can also follow online at our website and on Facebook.
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