Updates on the evolving storm warning systems in Ontario

[on_wx]

To anyone who is interested, especially the Ontario board members, quite a bit of ground has been made recently involving the storm warning systems in Ontario.

Brief history: after a long lull in major tornadic activity in Ontario, 2009-2011 proved incredible for the amount of destructive tornadoes wreaking havoc on the province. The destruction opened every ones eyes to how unprepared we really are. Extending from the federal and provincial governments down to local governments and the average person... preparations have been evolving and taking place in several forms including tornado drills.

In the last couple of years some attention has been given to tornado sirens by several municipalities. It's been a long slow debate and often many municipalities decide sirens are unnecessary, but not everyone feels the same.

Western Lambton County bordering St. Clair County, Michigan has been using emergency sirens since the 1980s. More specifically it was just the city of Sarnia, but in 2001 they updated and expanded the system to include Corunna, Aamjiwnaang, and Point Edward. They expect to expand the system even further in the future. The sirens are used for tornado warnings in addition to chemical emergencies, etc.

Recently, Woolwich Township in my regional municipality(it's a county with a fancy name) decided to install a network of sirens to be used for chemical and tornado emergencies in the town of Elmira. This year they have been expanding the network to two other towns and they even purchased a new siren for a town just down the road from me. They also expect to have sirens in all towns and villages within the township and they have been pressuring the other municipalities in my regional municipality to follow suit.

Tonight I learned that Huron County is now interested in tornado sirens and the town of Clinton has actually installed a siren, the first in Ontario, to be a tornado only siren. The county says they have nine additional municipalities with old air raid and fire sirens that they expect to be implemented as tornado sirens in the near future. Last August a powerful and deadly F3 tornado slammed the town of Goderich in Huron County, so they are definitely taking these measures seriously.

Also, there is supposed to be a television emergency alert system coming sometime in the future. The system was developed some two years ago, but it has yet to make a full-scale launch and I believe it's still only a voluntary system with few networks that have signed on to it. I'll have to look into it and find more information.

Another update, Emergency Management Ontario has suspended the "Red Alert" system for tornado warnings in Ontario. If you have no idea what it was, basically EMO was issuing their own warnings for areas Environment Canada issued warnings for. They often came an hour late and were completely ridiculous.

TL;DR

Woolwich Township including Elmira is installing tornado sirens across township, pressuring rest of Region of Waterloo to do the same.

Huron County installing tornado sirens and hope to have county-wide system in a few years.

Sarnia and surrounding areas still using their sirens for tornadoes.

Canadian EAS still hasn't completely launched.

EMO stopped issuing red alerts for tornadoes.

It's not much, but it's a start.

[snowstormcanuck]

Thanks for the info Mike. Growing up I remember my dad telling me about tornado sirens here in Toronto. I haven't found any information on them specifically. Seems like we had general civil defense sirens that were erected during the Cold War era, which I suppose could have doubled as tornado sirens if needed. They've been abandoned since and no longer operate.

[on_wx]

Thanks for the info Mike. Growing up I remember my dad telling me about tornado sirens here in Toronto. I haven't found any information on them specifically. Seems like we had general civil defense sirens that were erected during the Cold War era, which I suppose could have doubled as tornado sirens if needed. They've been abandoned since and no longer operate.

Yeah just about city in Canada had air raid sirens during the cold war that were mostly dismantled in the 1990s, as opposed to the USA which kept many of them has tornado sirens. Some towns in Canada still use their sirens for fire calls and other cities still have them up, but they haven't been maintained in decades. I could imagine a general shift to volunteer fire department sirens becoming tornado sirens as what is happening in Huron County and Waterloo Region.

I actually just discovered that Manitouwadge, Ontario in the Thunder Bay District has a new tornado siren that was tested on August 22.