SOLON — Ongoing issues with outdoor warning sirens in Solon are being addressed, again, in the wake of the March 31 tornadoes. Johnson County Emergency Management (EMA), who controls the sirens through the Joint Emergency Communications Center (JECC) dispatchers, activated them as severe thunderstorms producing tornadoes were entering the county. However, only one of three in Solon sounded.
“We knew we had a problem with one of the sirens a few months ago,” said Scott Kleppe, Public Works Director, who noted technicians had been addressing the problem. But they weren’t able to know for sure if the repairs had been effective until the storms rolled in. “The County protocol is, they have their monthly siren test (first Wednesday of the month at 10:00 a.m.), and that’s it.” Kleppe said they were able to run a silent test through the controls in the old fire station. “We could get the head to rotate, so to us, it’s ‘working.’ Then we’d wait for the next month for the County to do their siren test, and it’s not working. It’s not doing anything.”
A number of factors have played into the malfunctions. For one, the sirens within the city were manufactured by Whelen Engineering Company while the bulk of the sirens in the county were made by Federal Signal Corporation. Both are activated by radio signals via an encoder, which sends out a series of specific tones to trigger the siren. Due to incidents of people recording the tones and transmitting them to maliciously set off sirens, Whelen reconfigured the frequency to a very narrow bandwidth.
“Unfortunately, the County was not set up for that. And their (Federal) sirens don’t require that.” Kleppe added Coralville and North Liberty, who also use Whelen sirens, have had the same issue according to the manufacturer’s representative. “So, we’ve been trying to get to the bottom of this a couple months prior. Each time, we think we’ve got it fixed, and then we get the (monthly) test, and I get the manufacturer’s rep back out here. We actually thought we had everything correct, and then of course the sirens go off and the oldest Whelen we have (located by old City Hall and the Community Center), which was made before they tightened up that bandwidth, goes off and the other two did not.”
Kleppe called the rep and learned one option would be to go to the individual siren locations and set them off manually, which would have placed him in the path of the oncoming storms. The storms moved so quickly however, “they were already here when that option was known,” Kleppe said. “Immediately I was on the horn with Dave Wilson (EMA Director) and Frontline (the Whelen vendor) and they were out here on Tuesday (April 4), and again…we think we have everything (fixed).”
Wilson spoke with RACOM, the County’s communications vendor, and stressed they needed to conform to the city’s needs, Kleppe said, “and supposedly, changes were made.” The city has not been able to test the sirens completely. “We can (silent) test it on our end, and it works, but we won’t know for sure until the next test comes out.”
Part of the inability to do a full test is based in County policy, and recent weather has also been a factor.
“Last week was not a good week to do it because we either had a chance of storms again or we had overcast skies, and they will not budge on that (ostensibly in an effort to prevent undue alarm by the public).”
With clear skies in the forecast, and no storms predicted, Kleppe contacted Wilson and was granted permission to fully test the sirens Friday, April 14 starting at 10:00 a.m. There may be a series of short tests, each lasting less than three minutes between 10 and 10:15 a.m. In the event of threatening weather, the test will be postponed. And, once completed, the regular monthly schedule will resume Wednesday, May 3 at 10:00 a.m.
In addition, the city now has the ability to set off the sirens independent of the JECC after repairs were made to the control box in the old fire station. That control box has also had a history of malfunctions, Kleppe said. “That’s why we haven’t had the noon and five (p.m.) whistle in about a month. We had it repaired, and they brought it back, it worked for two days and then it went out again. So back it goes to Whelen, they sent me out an older version, we plugged it in…and it needs a 9-volt battery. We put a brand-new battery in it, and for some reason, it still doesn’t work. Tuesday (April 4), they brought us another one. Now, we can be at the (old) fire station, which if that had been an option, I would’ve done that,” he said.
“Not to sound cheeky but it’s almost a ‘perfect storm’ when the storm came,” said City Administrator Cami Rasmussen. “There were just so many things that came together that negatively impacted the sirens.” Like Kleppe, she too is trained to activate the sirens if necessary. “This (fixing the sirens) has been a high priority for us. From a siren standpoint, under the circumstances, I think everybody did the best that we had our ability to do.”
The purpose of outdoor warning sirens
Outdoor sirens are only one part of an overall warning system that includes individual preparation, NOAA Weather Radio, local media (TV/radio), as well as commercial text and smart phone messages. Sirens are an outdoor warning system designed only to alert those who are outside that dangerous weather (or other hazard) is approaching. When the sirens are heard, people should go inside and tune into local media for more information.
Emergency Managers, the National Weather Service, and television broadcast meteorologists have strongly emphasized for decades how people should not rely solely on “storm sirens” for a warning of impending severe weather. Instead, they advocate for having a weather radio, monitoring TV and/or local radio broadcasts, and being able to receive alerts on your phone. They also urge people to be “weather aware.” Forecasters began warning of the potential for severe thunderstorms capable of producing multiple tornadoes several days ahead of March 31, and again for anticipated storms on April 4, in an effort to make people aware in advance.
One way to receive instant warnings is to sign up for the free Johnson County Emergency Notification System (JCENS), a mass-notification service provided by the State of Iowa, which gives Johnson County the ability to send out messages regarding emergency or general events. Messages can be sent county-wide or to specific locations, such as Solon. Users can also select to receive weather warnings via their mobile phone.
There are three ways to sign up to receive alerts:
• Create a profile and sign up for Johnson Alerts online at https://www.smart911.com/ref/reg.action?pa=JohnsonCountyAlerts
• Download the Smart911 app available in the Apple App Store or Google Play.
• Text JohnsonIA to 67283
For more information, go to alert.iowa.gov.
For information on severe weather preparedness visit www.weather.gov/dvn/Awareness_Weeks or beready.iowa.gov.
Johnson County Outdoor Warning Siren Activation Policy
The County has 67 sirens currently, which are activated for:
• Tornado Warnings – either Doppler radar indicated or reported by a trained spotter
• Straight-line winds of 70 mph or greater
• Severe Thunderstorm Warnings when golf ball-size hail (or larger) is happening or expected
• Sirens run for three minutes (actual event) and one minute (test)
• Sirens may be sounded multiple times to alert residents to a continued or new threat
• Johnson County does not sound an “all-clear”
Update on storm
recovery efforts
At least 23 properties across the city sustained damage from the March 31 tornadoes with at least six instances of a tree falling onto a house or garage, and nine cases of roof damage including the damage to the Solon Hardware Store and El Sol Mexican Restaurant.
Public Works staff began clearing roads of downed trees and debris immediately while the Solon Fire Dept. responded to approximately 11 calls for service.
“Emergency services did an outstanding job,” said Rasmussen. A post-event meeting was held last Tuesday looking at the response in general, what went well, and most importantly, what improvements need to be made in case there is a “next time.” Rasmussen said, “We had good communications with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office and Emergency Management, we had city staff onsite, we had Public Works out on the streets, the firefighters had 19 onsite; and those are incredible numbers and an incredible response and (Assistant Fire Chief) Scott Wolfe did a helluva job.” Public Works staff put in 65 hours of regular time and 13 hours of overtime for 78 hours total spent on storm recovery. The city received help from Cy’s Tree Service with pulling trees off of houses and removing dangerous hanging limbs. In addition, the Swisher Fire Department provided additional manpower for Solon’s firefighters.
The meeting also served as something of a pre-plan ahead of the anticipated storms.
“One of the things that came out of it was the realization that we have to have a way to communicate with each other,” said Kleppe. “Johnson County has a fantastic radio system, and we have radios, but we can’t communicate to each other. One’s UHF, the other’s VHF, one’s digital, so we’re going to look into purchasing a couple of those digital radios. But they’re very expensive, roughly six-grand.” Ahead of Tuesday’s storms, the fire department loaned Kleppe one of their (digital) radios. One communications complication they found after the March 31 storms was the failure of cellular communications as various networks went down, similar to the aftermath of the August 2020 Derecho.
“I think we all realized that had that tornado been any worse, had there been that next level of damage, that communication is essential,” said Rasmussen. “How we figured it out worked fine, but ‘fine’ is not good enough in a disaster.”
Last weekend for the
debris dumpster
The city has had a dumpster at the City Shops, 1031 Stinocher St. where residents can dispose of storm debris for free. However, with the majority of the clean-up completed, Kleppe anticipates having it hauled away next week, making this the last weekend it will be available.
Also, the annual Clean Up Day (traditionally the weekend after the Citywide Garage Sales) has been moved from June to August 12 due to the amount of activity at the SRNA in early June.
Final thoughts
“If I learned anything from Friday’s storm, it was that I will never take for granted those emergency notifications again. I think living in Iowa (we tend to shrug them off or not take them seriously), but not anymore. That was too close to home,” Rasmussen said.