The deadly storm in Mississippi has raised questions about warning systems in poor, rural communities
people here, attention has turned to weather warning systems and whether the city’s functioned properly and was sufficient the night of the storm. The city’s mayor told The Washington Post he did not hear Rolling Fork’s two sirens. Over a dozen residents interviewed in different parts of the community said they did not hear any sirens. A storm chaser described driving through the city moments before the tornado, desperately alerting people.
Across Rolling Fork, many said the only alert they received was the sound of the approaching wind. It was more than a whisper through the leaves. It sounded like a roar.during the height of the Cold War. Over time, the systems took on another purpose: alerting people to natural disasters. Use of outdoor sirens for tornado warnings began as early as 1970, but many small towns and rural areas only have a handful. Some — including communities near Rolling Fork — have none at all.
“Anecdotally, many people in past tornado emergencies have credited sirens as being the method that woke their family up and allowed them to effectively shelter,” Laidlaw said. At 7:53 p.m. local time that evening, the National Weather Service in Jackson warned that a storm capable or producing tornadoes was headed to the area. Six minutes later, the agency confirmed a “large and destructive tornado” was on the ground and headed toward Rolling Fork. At 8:04 p.m., the NWS declared a “tornado emergency,” the Weather Service’s most dire alert, for Rolling Fork. The initial warning would have generated an automatic cellphone alert.
The only warning Natalie Nelson received about the tornado came from her father. She happened to be on the phone with her parents when her father mentioned a tornado warning had just been issued. The small gray-and-black box with a keypad to activate Rolling Fork’s alarms is one of the few intact items in the Sharkey County Sheriff’s Office. A white note is taped on the wall directly above it, scrawled with the two three-digit numbers that when punched in, sound the city’s sirens.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Administration did not respond to an inquiry from The Post on whether they’d gotten previous requests for additional storm preparedness funding in Sharkey County or had information on sirens in the area. In statement, an agency spokesperson said, “Our focus right now is life safety and getting those people the assistance they need as quickly as we can.”
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