COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Counties across Mid-Missouri are continuing to take steps to ensure their warning systems work reliably during severe weather.

In Boone County, officials are rolling out a new system that aims to make siren use more precise and reduce what they call “siren fatigue” — the overuse of sirens in areas not directly impacted by storms.

“We knew that the system that we have currently in place where we have the zones, sometimes we are sounding sirens that may be kind of outside that catchment area for a possible tornado,” Boone County Presiding Commissioner Kip Kendrick said. “And we know that every time we sound sirens where it could be more of a blue sky situation for that zone, it creates a possibility for siren fatigue.”

Discussions around the upgrade began during the county’s fiscal year 2025 budget planning, according to Kendrick. Boone County Emergency Management Director Chris Kelley and Joint Communications Director Christie Davis first brought the proposal forward.

The county is now using CommanderOne, a Federal Signal software platform that activates sirens only in areas specifically under a National Weather Service tornado warning or a severe thunderstorm warning with a destructive tag, which includes wind speeds of 80 miles per hour or hail 2.75 inches in diameter or greater.

The system allows sirens to be triggered based on the exact warning polygon issued by the NWS, rather than broader countywide zones. Officials said the upgrade was funded through Boone County’s 911 sales tax.

“Just like any emergency management protocol, we have redundancies built into that,” Kendrick said. “So if CommanderOne, for whatever reason, doesn’t automatically trigger those sirens, then we will have backup joint communications team ready to manually sound those alarms. And should they be caught up in calls and unable to, then our emergency management director, as well as communications director, can log into the system and sound the sirens, too.”

The commission earlier this month also approved implementing three new sirens.  A programming issue led to a siren not sounding in June 2024.

Meanwhile, in Cooper County, officials have been upgrading their siren infrastructure over the last few years. The county replaced a siren in Pilot Grove on Tuesday that had failed during a tornado warning due to a power outage.

“The Pilot Grove tornado, that siren did not have battery backup and the electricity went off. About the same time we were receiving the tornado warning from the National Weather Service,” said Larry Oerly, who is the director of the Cooper County Emergency Management Agency. “So, in other words, the wind or the tornado had knocked out the electricity to the siren prior to us setting it off.”

The new sirens installed in Cooper County all feature battery backups and are triggered via radio signal from the county’s 911 center.

“Our policy in Cooper County is that we set all these sirens in the polygon that we get from the National Weather Service,” Oerly said. “They will show the affected areas."

The county began upgrading sirens in 2022 using grant funding. Since then, new sirens have been installed in Boonville, the Brady Showgrounds and the Fox Hollow subdivision, which had been outside the range of previous sirens. 

The City of Otterville also had it’s siren replaced last year due to “intermittent problems.” Orely says that the Otterville siren also ran on electricity, which presented issues during severe weather. 

“Our policy in Cooper County, they have to be manually triggered from our 911 center. They are all  triggered over radio frequency," Orely said. “Our policy in Cooper County is that we set all these sirens in the polygon that we get from the National Weather Service when they issue a tornado warning, will have a polygon that will show the affected areas.” 

Officials in both counties stress that sirens are intended to warn people who are outdoors and should not be relied upon as the sole method of receiving severe weather alerts.

“This is one of many ways to receive a warning. Sirens are a mechanical piece of machinery. They can break, they can fail. Always, always have multiple ways of getting weather warnings,” Oerly said. 

Residents are encouraged to use weather radios, mobile apps, and emergency alert systems to stay informed during dangerous weather.

Boone and Cooper County’s efforts reflect a broader push among emergency managers to modernize tornado warning systems and ensure communities are better prepared when seconds count.