Called 911 for a Tornado but a warning never went up

[feederband]

Called 911 to report possible tornado forming...I said large rotation with debri hundreds of yards in the air but not on the ground....Called about 2 minutes later and said tornado was on the ground and large debri in air...This was about 5 blocks from us...It of course hit a trailer park ...Looks like a EF0 varity but the storm was still intensifying...


Why wouldn't they put a warning out..

I was hoping they would of put one out it was heading towards Rockredge road area...We have yet to here from people we know in that area.

[RL3AO]

Dispatcher must not have know to contact the NWS. Make call the emergency manager of your county and tell him this.

[feederband]

Dispatcher must not have know to contact the NWS. Make call the emergency manager of your county and tell him this.

Good Idea....


Looks like it was fairly localized...1 Street in the trailer park took a good hit no injury's...A few trees a few blocks away and a pool screen torn apart... A few fences about 1/4 mile in the other direction...I was suprised at how mush noise the debri was making...You would of thought the whole trailer park was being ripped apart from where we were about 1000 yards away.

[Dionne]

I have been through the same situation......twice. I have been through the proper channels asking why.....? I have sat in the mayors office watching everyone point fingers at each other.

There is a specific chain of command that allows for siren activation. It starts with the NWS......they notify the emergency manager in your county/city via blackberry who in turn notifies his staff at emergency operations center who in turn notifies the appropriate location that has the button to activate the siren(s). The system is slow and allows for numerous human failures.

Unfortunately, even with today's technology and the NWS site available to anyone online.....even if you see a red box jump up on doppler.....you cannot activate the sirens until you have been given the order through this so called "chain of command".

That's why we have guys riding around in fancy government trucks and starched uniforms and radios and cell phones, collecting nice pay checks.

And when you can show them documentation of how they failed it really pisses them off!

[jinftl]

I totally get what you are saying....seems like 'red tape' shouldn't be involved in things like reporting tornadoes, but in all fairness, without such protocol, there would be the potential for not only knowingly false reports that could cause panic, but reports of tornadoes based on 'i thought i saw' and 'it was so windy there must have been one' coming from all directions. There needs to be a standard, one-voice method for these things.

Forecasting tornadoes is an inexact science, and esp with the florida ones that can drop down very quickly out of a summer thunderstorm and generally are on the weaker end of the scale. By the time they are reported, they may very well have disappated. That said, the real-time accuracy of storm data as it is happening and what is forecast is leaps and bounds of what it used to be thanks to better technology, reporting stations, etc. It will never be perfect, Mother Nature ultimately does what she will....we can only be prepared and aware.

The more aware we are of weather conditions we are witnessing with our own two eyes, the more able we are to act as our own personal 'emergency managers'.

I have been through the same situation......twice. I have been through the proper channels asking why.....? I have sat in the mayors office watching everyone point fingers at each other.

There is a specific chain of command that allows for siren activation. It starts with the NWS......they notify the emergency manager in your county/city via blackberry who in turn notifies his staff at emergency operations center who in turn notifies the appropriate location that has the button to activate the siren(s). The system is slow and allows for numerous human failures.

Unfortunately, even with today's technology and the NWS site available to anyone online.....even if you see a red box jump up on doppler.....you cannot activate the sirens until you have been given the order through this so called "chain of command".

That's why we have guys riding around in fancy government trucks and starched uniforms and radios and cell phones, collecting nice pay checks.

And when you can show them documentation of how they failed it really pisses them off!

[Dionne]

You couldn't be more right ....jinftl. Do not rely on some government agency for your safety. Help yourself, help your neighbors......we all learned that in the immediate hours after Katrina's landfall.

I do differ somewhat on false calls to 911. All 911 calls can be traced. If there was a sudden rash of calls during a severe thunderstorm event......it should be taken as an immediate alert.

On May 3 we had a Derecho approaching from the west. Very obvious on doppler. Red box jumps up and siren activation is suggested as 80 mph straight line winds with large hail coming our way. Sirens never activated. Problematic Sunday morning employees asleep at the switch.

Don't get me wrong, I know there are thousands of qualified and alert first responders and emergency management personnel out there. We just do not have them in Copiah county.

[psyclone]

there is no report of any wind damage or tornado from polk county on the SPC storm report page. Ruskin is pretty quick to pull the trigger on tor warnings but apparently they didn't think it was necessary. However they are very good about doing storm surveys within a couple of days of wind events and posting results in at the top of their homepage.

[feederband]

there is no report of any wind damage or tornado from polk county on the SPC storm report page. Ruskin is pretty quick to pull the trigger on tor warnings but apparently they didn't think it was necessary. However they are very good about doing storm surveys within a couple of days of wind events and posting results in at the top of their homepage.

Yeah somebody already came and took my statement and a copy of what we had on video...I told them I thought it was strange that a tornado warning wasnt posted...They said there wasn't anything they saw on radar...I told her that was BS I took a pic of a hook echo that was on the radar at the time and showed her..It was only on one shot so it was there for only a few minutes but it was obvious...Just wonder if maybe they are a little under staffed because of the holiday week....She said well maybe it was a small short lasting one...I said thats exactly what it was but what if it was the begining of something major...Every second may help someone...She said well thats why we do these investigations...

I personally think we were right where the seabreezes colided and they may of thought that was a false echo...There also was some straight line damage about half a mile to the SE of where we saw the funnel forming so they thought it could of been that..I didn't get that on the video but we saw it...You can actually hear my son on the video asking me is that a mico burst..And me saying yes...The whole cloud just crashed to the ground...I wished I had that on film because the tornado was on the edge of the rain sheild with debri shooting out 100's of feet into the air but also being sucked back into the rain sheild...The sound though was just unreal...I can't find my cord to put on here ...I have to go buy another on ...once I do I will get some pics on here..

[psyclone]

Very impressive feederband. It could have indeed been one of those quick florida spinups or a downburst event. I just saw some pics on baynews 9 and clearly something of note took place. hopefully the NWS will look at the damage and give us the results. it looks like today could be a repeat for folks over the interior of the state.

[CajunMama]

feederband, if you were a skywarn spotter things might have been handled differently. With this, would you consider becoming one?

[feederband]

feederband, if you were a skywarn spotter things might have been handled differently. With this, would you consider becoming one?

I was one in Volusia County years ago...

[vbhoutex]

I have to agree with CM on that. I would encourage everyone on this site to become a trained skywarn spotter. More than once when I have called in reports, there have been appropriate warnings put out using my details and/or others they have recieved from the area, espceially if mine and the public or other enforcement agency information is close to the same. Fortunately I haven't had to report any tornados, but way too much flash flooding. They also give you a direct NWS line to call for reports. Every forecast office homepage has a Skywarn link on it as far as I know.

[Dionne]

Thanx. I just clicked on the SKYWARN link. There isn't currently a spotter training course scheduled for Mississippi. There was one on 5/18 in Cleveland, MS.

The course only takes 2 hours? Huh?

[vbhoutex]

Thanx. I just clicked on the SKYWARN link. There isn't currently a spotter training course scheduled for Mississippi. There was one on 5/18 in Cleveland, MS.

The course only takes 2 hours? Huh?

The course may be the beginning course. There is a beginning and an advanced course, which are usually combined here in Houston. They normally pass out a booklet that has a lot of useful information and really breaks down what is considered severe and what isn't as well as explaining many of the terms used. My skywarn, which I need to renew, took 4 hours iirc.

[dizzyfish]

In Florida (well at least here) you can take the first section of the SKYWARN class online through a link provided on the NWS site. The rest is done in a class session. They are pretty good about having them fairly frequently. The last time I had to renew I got lucky and it was only about 5 miles from my house.

[tomboudreau]

I can attest to being a skywarn spotter. Could of weeks ago, I was off sick from work. Had a popup storm move in and produced a real short period of hail, less then .25". Still called it in since they want to know about all hail. Within 10 minutes of the first call, a hail shaft moved directly over the house and hail became dime and a little bit bigger in size. Followed up the first call with a second call. Within minutes of the call, the weather radio blared for a severe thunderstorm warning for Allegheny and Westmoreland County. Warning even mentioned that a spotter had reported dime size to slightly larger hail. Warnings save lives daily. Glad I made that call as the storm soon began dropping 1.25 to 1.50" hail in the Pittsburgh area. Having that direct link to the weather service was great in that aspect.

[senorpepr]

I'll piggyback on the comments regarding being a trained spotter. Even in my line of work, we often get phones calls reporting various weather phenomena. However, if the person isn't identified as a trained spotter, and our weather data doesn't support that phenomena, the report often gets pushed to the side. You'd be surprised how many folks call in reports of tornadoes when, in fact, it's nothing more that fractus.

If the NWS issues a warning on every single call they receive, their false alarm rate would be incredibly high and complacency will follow.

[Stephanie]

Good job feederband. I hope that you do re-take that course again.

I think that if someone does call in a report of severe weather, particularly a tornado, someone should be following up on it. Even if it was a micro-burst, it's dangerous, as evidenced by what happened in Dallas. It could even affect air traffic. Imagine if something like that did happen because a warning was never issued.

[senorpepr]

Usually there is following up on a called in report, but it isn't practical to dispatch someone out to the scene for every report called in by an average citizen. You do the most you can with the resources you have, but you have to quickly press on.

[HURAKAN]

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/?n=skywarn

In Miami the next class is June 20. Palm Beach, July 18.