Collinsville, IL
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Outdoor Warning System Testing
PLEASE NOTE: As the replacement of the City's Emergency Warning System nears completion this week, there will be additional siren testing starting as soon as this Saturday (June 15th) and into next week to ensure that each of the new sirens are functioning properly. The City WILL NOT test sirens during the chance of pending severe thunderstorms.
In the Madison County side of the City, nine sirens have been replaced in existing locations, and three sirens have been installed in new locations. In the St. Clair County portion of the City, four sirens have been replaced in existing locations.
As a reminder, the system that's being replaced – which had been in place for decades and included sirens that were over 40 years old – used a manually-activated process that required City Communications Technicians to receive information of a tornado warning via a teletype or email, acknowledge that they had the information and set off ALL of the City's sirens at once from the Communications Center located in the Police Department. Because of their age, replacement parts were no longer available for these sirens and their failure rate was high.
Instead of relying on manual activations, the new siren system uses more advanced technology that’s connected to the National Weather Service’s polygon warning system, which improves accuracy and quality. According to the NOAA and NWS, this allows your local NOAA NWS Weather Forecast Office to "be able to narrow their focus on a portion of a county (or counties) that have the greatest threat for being impacted by severe weather." Once a tornado warning is issued for a polygon-based area, the sirens that are in said area automatically activate – NOT all of the City's sirens. If the siren(s) in your area sound, a tornado or destructive thunderstorm is projected by the NWS to be heading in your direction.