Elgin’s outdoor emergency warning siren system will return to manual activation during severe thunderstorms after residents complained the automatic system caused confusion and could result in people ignoring them.
The Office of Emergency Management will return to manually triggering the warning sirens after they went off four times during one recent storm despite there being no tornadoes in the area. They were activated automatically by National Weather Service warnings for severe conditions in the area, Fire Chief Robb Cagann told the Elgin City Council Wednesday night.
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While the feature will be deactivated for severe thunderstorm warnings, it will remain automated for tornado warnings that are issued by the NWS.
Elgin’s warning system was upgraded in 2024 to include the automatic activation when a NWS warning for a tornado, thunderstorm or other severe weather situation is released, said Cagann, who oversees the city’s Office of Emergency Management. It does not get activated during severe weather watches.
Automation takes away the potential for delays and removes human error, he said.
Despite the confusion, the sirens are not just for tornadoes but for all severe weather, Cagann said. Severe thunderstorms with 75-mph winds can be as dangerous and can cause as much or more damage than a lower-grade tornado with winds of 65 mph, he said.
Deactivating the automatic system will give the city more control over when the sirens are activated, the chief said. When they receive a text notifying them of weather warnings, the decision to trigger the sirens can be made by phone, he said.
“We can have these sirens off within a minute,” Cagann said.
It also means the sirens will be activated only when the severe weather is within the city limits, Cagann said. The automatic system covers 38 miles and includes areas outside of Elgin.
Returning the system to manual activation will give city officials time to research and evaluate other options, Cagann said.
One long-term solution might be to adopt to different siren sounds — one for tornadoes and the other thunderstorms, he said.
Notifying the public about a thunderstorm, which can carry a rain-wrapped tornado — as was the case in the recent Lena tornado — is as important as notifying the public about a tornado, Cagann said.
“I would personally like to see two different sirens,” Councilwoman Tish Powell said. “I don’t want people to become desensitized to the sirens. That’s what I’m concerned about.”
One concern about having two different sirens is that people visiting the area won’t be able to differentiate between them, Cagann said.
“We’re trying to weigh the options,” he said.
Another idea is to “zone” the warning system so that it goes off only in the area where the severe weather is located, Cagann said. “But, as we know, storms can change,” he said.
One thing they will be doing is undertaking a media campaign to educate the community about how the outdoor emergency warning siren system works and what the sirens mean.
“There is some need for some reeducation about what the system is for,” Cagann said.
Its original purpose was civil defense, he said. “It wasn’t until the ’70s that we started seeing widespread use for weather emergencies,” he said.
When sirens go off, the intent is to warn people, especially those outside, to find shelter, Cagann said.
“Those sirens are not to tell you exactly what is happening. It is to tell you a threat is coming your way, get inside and seek additional information,” he said.
Although they’re commonly called “tornado sirens,” that’s a misnomer, he said.
While residents complained about the number of times sirens were activated, emergency management practices call for a proactive alert protocol rather than a reactionary one, he said.
There’s also a theory called the “Plainfield Syndrome,” which came out of the deadly EF5 tornado in Plainfield in 1990. The idea is “it’s better to issue too many warnings and not have them materialize than to miss one lifesaving warning,” Cagann said.
Councilman Corey Dixon said the residents he heard from weren’t upset by the sirens going off but because they didn’t know why they were activated.
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“I think what this all comes down to is education and having a different siren,” Dixon said. “The key is education no matter what we do.”
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.