Joplin's tornado sirens sounded well before the tornado hit, and our local television stations, radio stations (especially those in the Zimmer Group) and emergency personnel were on top of the situation well before it touched down.
In the aftermath of the tornado, the importance of being prepared has been stressed over and over, and one thing nearly always mentioned is the importance of purchasing a NOAA Weather Radio.
Perhaps on other days that emergency system could have played a vital role in saving lives.
Not on Sunday, May 22, 2011.
While the tornado that took 141 lives was on the ground for at least 20 minutes, not one word about it was mentioned over the NOAA weather radios.
In an article written by Wally Kennedy in today's Joplin Globe, Bethany Hale, a member of a National Weather Service investigative team that is in Joplin, explained what the team is seeking:
“We have a set list of questions we want answered. We are trying to get them to take us through that day. Were they aware of the possibility of severe weather that day? If they knew a couple of days before, that tells us (the National Weather Service) that we are having the impact we hope.
“We want to know what they did when they heard the sirens. What type of media did they get their warning from? Was it TV, radio, weather radio or sirens?
“When we talk to people, they tend to answer all of those questions for you. We want to make this as casual, comfortable and informal for them as we can so we can get to the heart of why people did what they did that day.
“The end process will tell us how well we are issuing warnings here, how people received that information and what they did here when they received that threat. Are they doing the right things?”
If anyone tells the NWS team that the information came over the NOAA weather radio, that person is mistaken and is probably confusing it with the coverage offered by the local radio stations. While the National Weather Service issued the warning, it never went out over weather radio.
Since a tornado took away half of my hometown of Newtonia three years ago, my parents have relied on their weather radio and the new shelter they built. They never heard anything about the Joplin tornado over that radio, which was in perfect working condition, but instead found out about it from a phone call from my older sister in Coloradok who was watching coverage of the storm on The Weather Channel.
Less than two hours ago, I received a call from a highly respected Joplin woman who has been getting the runaround as she tries to figure out why she never received any warning about the tornado via weather radio.
A lot of things worked perfectly Sunday, May 22, and prevented many more lives from being lost, but the one thing that did not work, at least on this occasion was the NOAA Weather Radio.
21 comments:
I have a NOAA Weather Radio as well. I live in Springfield and about a year ago when a tornado warning was issued for the city of Springfield, my radio also did not warn me. It has gone off plenty of other times, however none of those times were to warn me of imminent danger, such as a tornado warning issued for the city where I reside! I sent the customer service department a strongly worded letter, however the response I received basically told me I didn't have my radio set up correctly. I guess they forgot to read the portion of my email where I explained that the weather radio has no problem sounding during other watches and warnings....
You know I hadn't even thought of that. We are in Parsons Kansas..about an hour away..and we got the hail storm that came before and during the tornado storm. We had the Weather radio on the entire time...and although it mentioned hail might be coming...it really underestimated how bad the hail was (much of the city was getting baseball size hail for over 10 minutes, after the tornado warning had been lifted) and there was no talk of the tornado..and considering how long it was on the ground. I'm fairly positive we have heard weather for places even farther then Joplin.
What's your basis for this claim? Has the NOAA admitted it didn't send any warning through their weather radio system? Any official confirmation that you can provide would be helpful in holding their feet to the fire if this is indeed the case.
The weather radio was working and it went off for the tornado warning in Joplin. End of story.
That's a pretty hefty accusation to make based on anecdotal evidence. That's all I will say. I'm not saying it's true or false, but this article seems to be based on your parents and a "well-respected" woman in Joplin. I'd need further proof.
It is not the end of the story. The last mention of a tornado was the sighting of a funnel cloud in Galena- same system- last mention. If that's your idea of warning, sorry, it's not mine.
Sounds like this lady is reaching for the stars on this topic and this guy is feeding the false report.
Weather radios will only warn you for the counties that are programmed into it. Unless you live in Jasper County or have specifically had your radio programmed for Jasper County warnings, you will not get them. Others may not have heard theirs if the power went out. There are backup batteries in the radio, but if they aren't changed once a year or so, they won't have a charge left. I take those accounts of no warnings with a grain of salt. At least, unless NOAA puts out a statement that the warnings wasn't relayed over their system.
its true,ours did not sound a tornado warning even well after it started doing damage,I thought the radio broke but it had not
The warning will only sound when it is first issued and whenever the National Weather Service updates the warning. So the radios went off at 5:18 when it was issued. THAT was your warning. It takes time for the report of a tornado on the ground to be relayed from spotters back to the NWS and out over the radios. It's unfortunate the tornado formed over Joplin or else this delay between spotters/NWS/warning updates wouldn't have impacted as many people.
The first Tornado Warning was issued at 5:09pm (I receive text messages for severe weather warnings and their updates). It was updated at 5:30, but was also updated once before that (it was received close enough to the previous entry that it did not get its own time stamp). It was updated twice before 5:48, which was the next update. It was again updated at 6:01, 6:19, another update between, and 6:33, with another update shortly after. If the radio is indeed designed to go off at these times, then it should have been going crazy.
If you're not getting these warnings, find out why. Don't just assume they don't work. You should be able to just touch the "snooze" button on the radio and here the NWS broadcast... 24 hours a day whether there are warnings or not. If not, Are you tuned to the right frequency for your area? Are the batteries good? Is it programmed to go off for warnings in your county? Is the antenna up and most importantly, IS IT TURNED ON?
We live in Carthage, Mo. Our weather radio Issues warnings from all surrounding counties. It was blowing up within the hour before that tornado hit. It issued at least 2 separate warnings for that area in Joplin. One 30 minutes before and another 10 minutes before it hit. My husband was in Joplin, I called and checked on him before it hit because of the warnings from my weather radio. I did not have the tv on or another regular radio on. I'm not sure why others weather radios did not give the warning unless they weren't on or weren't set on the counties issued? Ours is very reliable. I heard those specific tornado warnings.
You make your claim with a lot of certainty Randy, so let me make sure I understand your line of evidence. You seem to come to your conclusion based on the performance of two weather radios, that of your parents and that of the mysterious “highly respected Joplin woman”. I don’t know how many weather radios were on in Joplin that day, but I think it’s safe to say that the number was probably much larger than two. You seem to be basing your conclusion on a very small portion of the possible dataset without any doubt of its accuracy. At the same time, you boldly assert, without any reasoning, that any person who gives an account that contradicts what that very small portion of the dataset suggests is… “mistaken”.
Are you familiar with the term “confirmation bias” Randy? If not, you should be now because you seem to be knee-deep in it.
I've said this before and I will say it again, the National Weather Service should be privatized. We get our weather from Channel 3, Springfield, no other. The Weather radio is always on, but when you are bombarded with a flash flood watch over and over, I tend to turn mine down and watch TV. When this thing hit, Dave Snider of KY3, immediately said folks this is a very dangerous storm, this dark spot is a debris field the radar is picking up. Never heard anything like this before from the National Weather Service. You will get more and better information from The Weather Channel or a local TV Meterologist than you will from the National Weather Service.
What is the importance to the people that were blown away or the residence destroyed if the weather service determines the tornado was an EF4 or an EF5. Notice they have to go out and determine is there was actually a tornado or not.
Much of their on the ground spotter information comes from Ham Radio operators. This is all well and good, but they are never sure of their own radar. Notice they seldom go live on NOAA Weather radio.
We live north of Carthage and our NOAA Radio did not go off. It has been set for correctly and for Jasper County.
It sounds like some people GOT warnings and some didn't. I suspect something technical with the radios is going on.
Perhaps Joplin should be more worried about their congressman voting against funding for NOAA. If the good congressman has his way there will be no need for your radios, working or not. It's that whole "Tea Party-small-government-thing" that sounds good until you get wiped off the map, then, not so good.
Careful what you wish for, you may get it. You want small government, you vote for smaller government....you might just get smaller government at a time when you need help in the worse way.
That children is the lesson in Joplin.
Too many people turn their weather radios OFF because it can get annoying with continuous warnings (i.e. for flooding.) Then they forget to turn it back ON and blame the radio for not alerting them! Weather radios are a great tool, and a great backup, but should not be your ONLY source of information!!! They are designed to alert you that something is happening and get you to tune in to local TV or radio for more details. Either way, people should be keeping track of the forecast... you are responsible for your own safety.
This blog post and some of the comments on here just assured me that there are some ignorant people that don't know the facts. Its ashamed that people have this warp sense of reality and dont know what really occurred.
And I just love this blogger trying to play on the emotions and sensitivity of the Joplin victims on a bogus and obviously a non story headline. I think it's tasteless and he should take down this post which he obviously didn't go do some fact checking like a real journalist would do before writing such a story.
I can assure you, NOAA weather radio DID ABSOLUTELY work that day. That's the ONLY way an unmanned station like Mike FM has to relay warnings. They did relay it, I heard it myself. With the Emergency Alert System, it relays all warnings that are sent through NOAA Weather Radio. It knows which ones to send where through those tones you hear before a EAS message.
They did indeed go off multiple times with multiple war Iva that day.
My guess is Wally didn't have his radio set to alert.
I think I have figured out what Randy is talking about here. It "clicked" with me when he posted the comment (in reply to someone else) about the Galena sighting. I don't think he's saying that the NOAA Weather Radio wasn't going off, or didn't deliver a warning. I think that the message within the warning did not convey a sense of urgency to him (and probably others). On that, I would have to agree.
I recently reviewed the warnings issued by the Springfield NWS for that day and there was never any specific "call to action" message given for Joplin in the warnings. In my opinion, there wasn't even a sense of urgency conveyed to residents of Joplin in the official warning products. The strongest wording that was ever used for Joplin was "AT 5:34 PM CDT...TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO NEAR
GALENA...MOVING EAST AT 25 MPH. THIS STORM IS MOVING INTO THE CITY
OF JOPLIN."
My immediate response after reading that was: "'This storm' is moving into the city of Joplin... but what about the tornado???" This part of the warning was poorly worded, in my opinion. I believe that it lacked a specific "call to action" and failed to convey an appropriate sense of urgency to the citizens of Joplin.
Keep in mind that these warnings are broadcast word for word over NOAA Weather Radio, and it sounds to me like that's what Randy remembered hearing about what was heading to Joplin. It almost seemed like the situation was "run of the mill" or otherwise unworthy of extraordinary attention.
At about the same time that the above warning was sent out, a debris ball was developing on radar, which is a strong signature associated with a damaging tornado.
In most cases like this, with a combination of a strong radar signature and an on-ground tornado report, wording such as "THIS IS A TORNADO EMERGENCY FOR THE CITY OF JOPLIN..." or something to that extent would have been used. Even if that wording wasn't used in the initial warning product or statement, a subsequent update could have (and I believe should have) been issued.
No updated statement pertaining to Joplin was issued until 5:48 PM, when, according to the warning text: "TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO NEAR EASTERN JOPLIN..."
To me, the issuance of a warning is only half of the battle. You have to convey a sense of urgency to the end user or they may ignore it altogether and not seek shelter.
Please don't get me wrong here. If a warning had not been issued at all, then who knows how many others would have perished. The warning triggered outdoor sirens, prompted many folks to turn on their local TV and/or radio station for more information, etc. - which undoubtedly saved lives. I'm just stating that I believe that the call to action and/or sense of urgency could have and should have been better in the actual warning products, which has a direct impact on the end user, and particularly those who rely on NOAA Weather Radio as their primary source of warning information.
If the NWS post-disaster team takes a fair, objective look at the wording used by the Springfield office in their warnings on that day, I believe that they will find that an appropriate call to action and/or sense of urgency was not conveyed in the "official" warning products that were issued for the city of Joplin.
For the record, I would like to point out that I do not read this blog on a regular basis. I was directed to this particular post by a simple google search to the effect of "lack of strong wording in Joplin tornado warning". I was driven to search for such a result after taking a look at the official NWS warnings of that day, and being surprised at what I had found. I was just curious whether anyone else had drawn a similar conclusion, hence the reason for my search in the first place.
I will continue to pray for as full and speedy of a recovery as possible for the community of Joplin.
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