County receives grant for reverse-911 warning system

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By Sally Voth - svoth@nvdaily.com

Shenandoah County residents soon will have a new way to be warned about tornadoes similar to the one that ripped through the area on April 28.

Measuring EF-2 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, the tornado destroyed 10 farm buildings and damaged 30 more, damaged dozens of homes -- some severely -- tore up numerous trees, injured two people and scared many more.

There is no dedicated tornado alert system in the region.

"We currently do not have anything in the county that alerts people," Shenandoah County Department of Fire and Rescue Chief Gary Yew said a week after the severe storm. "We did just recently receive a grant from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management that will allow us to install an electronic message alert system. We hope to have that up and running some time this summer."

Commonly referred to as reverse 911, the system would give weather and other alerts through land lines and cellphones, he said.

"It would be a recorded message or it could be a text," Yew said. "The system now has the capability to even isolate geographically parts of the county."

The county received a one-time $12,000 grant, he said, and the system has a $12,000 annual cost. In addition to tornadoes, it could be used for other emergencies, such as a hazardous-materials spill or law-enforcement matters, he said.

There is no regulation requiring localities to alert residents in case of a tornado, Yew said.

"The use of sirens I know is pretty common for storm warnings, for example, in the Midwest, or what's referred to as the tornado belt," he said.

Shenandoah County's rural layout would make the siren system impractical.

"The amount of sirens it would need would just be overwhelming," Yew said.

Frederick County Fire Chief Dennis Linaburg said residents in his county should stay tuned to National Weather Service alerts on TV and radio, and strongly encouraged them to have battery-operated weather-alert radios.

"Of course, we have been preaching those for a number of years," he said.

He said a phone alert system might also be able to be used for tornado warnings.

"We're looking into the [possibility] of maybe being able to do that," Linaburg said. "I think that's one of our better solutions. We're trying to utilize the new stuff that's out there. A lot of folks are more text-savvy now than they used to be."

Lynn Miller, emergency management coordinator for Winchester, also suggested weather radios.

"That will give them immediate alerts for all types of weather, not just tornadic action," he said.

Warren County has talked about having an alert system, but it's not gotten beyond the discussion stage, Fire Chief Richard Mabie said. Mabie said there have been no confirmed tornadoes in the 16 years he's been in the county. However, the Sheriff's Office is working on a reverse-911 system, he said.

"Just to have a tornado siren or something, we've never really pursued it hard," he said.