County to limit where tornado sirens go off

This tornado season, when meteorologists spot a funnel cloud in Franklin County, sirens will sound only in the area directly affected.

The Franklin County Emergency Management & Homeland Security office, which operates the siren system, is dividing the county into four quadrants — northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast. The axis is Broad and High streets.

“What we’re trying to do is align our outdoor siren system in how warnings are viewed,” said Jeff Young, executive director of the county’s emergency management office. People view weather alerts on their phones or on television, he said.

So the sirens will sound in the areas where the National Weather Service detects the bad weather, and where it is heading. Dividing the county into the four zones reduces the likelihood of sirens going off in unaffected areas.

“People will take action when it’s important to them,” Young said.

Young referred to a tornado warning on March 26, 2017, in Hilliard, Dublin and Grove City that affected the western part of Franklin County, although sirens went off all over the county. The county has 196 sirens. Ken Haydu, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service office in Wilmington, said the new system “reduces the area that goes under a false alarm.”

“The weather service had the best way of doing it,” Haydu said. “It only alerted people that needed to be alerted.”

County emergency management officials have briefed Franklin County’s fire and police chiefs. Jefferson Township Fire Chief Bradford L. Shull said that if a storm cell is projected to go through Dublin and his township is in no danger, there’s no need for a warning.

The county’s emergency management agency will implement the new policy as part of Ohio’s Spring Severe Weather Awareness Week from March 18-24.