The sirens going off for no reason caused confusion. It didn't alert anything. It went off for a minute and then stopped.
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The sirens going off for no reason caused confusion. It didn't alert anything. It went off for a minute and then stopped.
There were some high straight line winds around Winterset which would make sense for the sirens in that area. The ones in Urbandale were by mistake, which caused confusion.
Cyclonepride
Thought Police
Nah, the worst thing that happens is people start to ignore them as false alarms or being overly cautious, and then they're hit with a dangerous storm.
Some of the people who complain about sirens understand human behavior and know that misusing or overusing sirens without any actual severe weather following trains people to ignore them, which is actually bad.
I don’t have a sump pump
luckily our basement is at the highest point around. Our old house that was definitely a stress.If they go off when they're not supposed to I agree, but if it's just because people don't want to be warned about potentially dangerous things that aren't tornados then I disagree.
To clarify, I was not upset/annoyed that the sirens went off. I was just really confused why they were going off when I had no other warnings/notifications on my phone.
Good thing your phone alarm will blast if there is a tornado. Hard to miss.
Sirens are for people outside. Do you make your kids sleep outside? Just because you aren’t outside doesn’t mean other people aren’t. Selfish.
No warnings. I didn't even get a notification of storms/lightning in the area that my weather app notifies me We did end up getting some rain about an hour after the sirens went off.
I don’t but I’ve considered it.
Sirens are a crude tool, which was fine in 1985 when there were no other tools available. And they're still useful if we were more strategic about the way we used them. But we've expanded their use to the point where people consider it a measure of caution rather than a true emergency, particularly when you can pull up your phone or turn on the TV and get much more precise info upon which to decide.
It would be one thing if this were just a one-way problem of being overly cautious, but it goes both ways. I either forgot or never knew that these sirens have to cycle off occasionally to prevent damage, which came up the night that Pleasant Hill got hit and our sirens were cycling on and off repeatedly. Are most people going to know that sirens may cycle off and that isn't necesarily an indicator that the threat has passed? Of course not.
Even though it was by mistake, the sirens were still effective in making me check for potential storms. It alerted me to check the weather and be alert. In a weird way, it was still effective.
