Most Pittsburgh-area communities not equipped with tornado sirens
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Southwestern Pennsylvania is no stranger to severe weather, from snowstorms and dangerous thunderstorms to flash floods and tornadoes.
The Pittsburgh area has seen quite a few twisters recently and even more warnings. Despite this, most of the area is not equipped with tornado sirens, including Allegheny, Westmoreland and Washington counties.
North Franklin Township, Washington County is one community with tornado sirens. Officials just announced they're installing a fourth early warning system in its new township building.
Whether you stay informed by watching KDKA-TV, checking the National Weather Service or relying on phone alerts, you won't hear any tornado sirens going off in most of our area. KDKA-TV went to Chief Matthew Brown of Allegheny County Emergency Services to ask why.
"There are 130 municipalities in the county and each of those municipalities would have to initiate those things," Brown said. "I would love to say that it could be a countywide thing. But historically, this history goes back centuries. Our fire departments use sirens to alert many of their members to respond to an emergency that they need to go to. So, it could be very conflicting in the messaging about what the siren means."
While sirens could be an added life-saving alert, he said the system would need to be properly designed, implemented and maintained because it needs to work flawlessly at the worst moment.
"The more complex you make that alerting, the more you have to maintain and the less chance it's going to operate properly when you need it. So, you have to be careful with that," Brown said.
Cassandra Kovatch with the Westmoreland County Department of Public Safety weighed in as well. She said emergency sirens can be beneficial in many ways but could create confusion.
"They also can create confusion as well. For visitors in the area, they might not be familiar with the sirens. Also sirens are used to just alert communities if their first responders are out responding in the area for any type of incident," Kovatch said.
She said people should sign up for free emergency notification systems in their municipality and county. In Westmoreland County, they use CodeRED.
"They can receive those weather alerts directly to their phone either by text or by a call. And it goes based off the address that they use whenever they sign up," said Kovatch.
No matter how you receive alerts, take alert when a tornado warning hits your area.
"Go to the lowest level in your building, most inner portion of the building so you have the greatest protection from the outside," Brown said.
