TO THE EDITOR:

Again this week Wilkes County was placed under two different Tornado Warnings. Both of these warning occurred on Saturday afternoon, 5:09 p.m. and 5:32 p.m. It appears that their may still be some confusion over actions which should be taken by the public. First of all the Local Emergency Operations Plan for Wilkes County for the warning sirens are to be used only for a Tornado Warnings from the National Weather Service.

It should be understood that for a Tornado Warning the public should move to their pre-planed place of safety in their home or place of business. This should be the place away from windows or exterior walls, and should be the area which affords the strongest structural integrity.

The National Weather Service issues Tornado Warnings based upon information from the Doppler radars they now use. These radars give the meteorologist very technical information. They use this information and issue warnings. These warnings now come before storms can be seen by the public. However the meteorologists knows that the storms they are tracking may drop a tornado to the ground any minute. If the National Weather Service did not give the warnings based on radar information the public most likely would have no time to react. The warnings are issued to protect life.

A good number of people are concerned about the warning sirens used in Wilkes County. The sirens are not used to give an all clear. If you hear the siren you should move inside to the pre-planned place of safety and tune to the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Radio. Every home and place of business should have one of the NWS Weather Receivers SAME System. This allows the radio to be programmed for one county or a number of surrounding counties and will alert you only for the programmed counties. All of these radios have battery back up. When a warning is given the information from NWS should be monitored. They will give information as to the path of the storm and will give the time the warning will expire. I can not express how important these radios are to the public. The radio can be taken to your preplanned place of safety, and you can continue to monitor the information which comes directly from NWS. For more information about these radios we have placed brochures in a number of public buildings, and you may visit www.nws.noaa.gov/ nwr .

On March 15, 2008 the National Weather Service warned us properly, we again were fortunate that a tornado did not drop to the ground. If you have any questions concerning storm preparedness please contact Washington-Wilkes EMA.
Alan Pos, director
Washington-Wilkes EMA