When and why Central IL counties sound outdoor warning sirens

CENTRAL ILLINOIS (WCIA) — As severe weather moved through Central Illinois Monday night , people may have heard their local outdoor warning sirens going off, even though there wasn’t a tornado warning in their area.

This is because the sirens, commonly referred to as “tornado sirens,” now signal more than just tornadoes on the ground.

The Emergency Management Agencies of eight Central Illinois counties now activate their sirens if there is a weather event with destructive potential and a threat to public safety. Ford, Champaign, Vermilion, DeWitt, Logan, Menard, Christian and Coles Counties all activate their sirens if wind speeds reach a certain threshold — usually 70 to 80 miles per hour. Whether those winds are rotating is irrelevant.

Jim Hilgenberg, the EMA Director of Coles County, explained that the slowest tornadoes rotate at about 70 miles per hour. Whether there is rotation or not makes no difference in respect to human life, he explained. 70 miles per hour is a wind speed that poses a threat to life if one is caught outside.

The sirens, once meant to signal an active tornado, are now meant to signal people to get indoors. Several counties’ EMA Directors and Coordinators said they adopted this policy after last summer’s derecho, which produced few tornadoes but wreaked havoc on trees and buildings nonetheless.

Other counties like Iroquois, Douglas and Moultrie leave sirens up to individual towns and the discretion of a public official (like the fire or police chief) to sound the sirens. Sirens within a specific area will automatically sound if the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning for that area.

Piatt County currently only sounds their sirens if there is a tornado in the area, relying on trained spotters, but officials there said they do want to change the policy and adopt a minimum windspeed threshold.

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