More than just tornado warnings

By The Gazette Editorial Board

---

Tornadoes produce the most fear and fascination among Iowans when it comes to weather events.

But other powerful storms such as the one that rocked much of Benton and Tama counties, and parts of Linn, early Monday can be just as dangerous and destructive, and on a broader scale. Just ask folks in Dysart, Vinton, Urbana or Garrison, where straight-line winds topped 100 mph, pummeling trees and buildings, snapping power lines and poles. Thankfully, no deaths or serious injuries were reported.

Monday's storm also prompted Linn County Emergency Management Agency officials to sound the county's 109 warning sirens - the first time that's been done for a non-tornado weather event since new procedures began in April 2010. We think they made the right call.

Under the changes, the sirens can be sounded when storms packing winds of at least 70 mph or hail of golf ball size are likely - the thresholds where big tree limbs are likely to snap and personal safety is at high risk, according to the National Weather Service's recommendations.

“We're trying to be proactive,” Mike Goldberg, Linn County Emergency Management director, told us. The Quad Cities metro area and Polk County also have adopted the NWS standards.

Goldberg insists, and the record shows, his agency doesn't want to be too quick to cry wolf. “First, we try to get more validation of the National Weather Service forecast of the storm's potential.” That includes feedback from trained weather spotters to the west.

“If we set off the sirens too often without hitting the criteria, people eventually won't pay as much attention to them. We want to be accurate but wind is still a difficult thing to predict.”

The agency also can re-sound the sirens every 10 or 15 minutes if dangerous conditions persist. But, again, discretion is important so that it's not confused with, say, an all-clear signal.

Narrowing the notification zones, instead of routinely sounding a countywide alert, has been considered but “there's no way technologically to do it quickly yet,” Goldberg said.

The system is designed to alert people outdoors to dangerous weather, hazardous material and any radiological incidents at the nearby Palo nuclear power plant, whose owner installs and maintains the sirens. The cost and logistics of expanding the system so the warning can be heard inside every building and home is not practical, at least for now.

Nonetheless, turning on the sirens for all of the most dangerous storms is a sound step forward. More counties should consider it.

n Comments: thegazette.com/

category/opinion/editorial or

editorial@sourcemedia.net