Allegan County is advising residents some of its outdoor warning sirens aren’t working.
Allegan County Emergency Management Coordinator Sarah Clark tells us in routine testing last week, they found the sirens in the southeast portion of the county weren’t activating when sent the signal to do so.
“Our system works when central dispatch activates the siren system and it sends out a radio frequency that goes to each specific tower and that frequency then triggers the sirens to activate,” Clark said. “So, there was an issue with communication.”
Clark says the county is now working with its vendor to fix the issue. However, with storms on Thursday and possibly more storms Monday, residents are advised to keep themselves informed about weather conditions.
The sirens are only intended to make a person realize there’s an issue and then seek more information.
“They’re an outdoor warning siren, so they are not activated just for tornadoes. We actually have in our policy that they can be activated for winds in excess of 60 miles an hour. Actually, I think it’s 70 miles an hour now. So, if you have like a straight line wind or like gusty winds that can cause damage, we’ll activate the siren for that as well.”
Clark says the sirens that aren’t working could be manually activated, sometimes by fire departments and sometimes by county personnel. That will remain an option if they’re needed, but residents are advised to maintain multiple communication channels, like a NOAA weather radio and mobile alert apps, to receive emergency notifications.
