Provided it’s on, charged, has a signal and is in your vicinity. A siren is meant as a “Make a loud noise and alert everyone that something is wrong”. Then maybe you’ll go get your phone from the car and see what’s going on. Different overlapping systems.
You’re making a good case for having a phone alert system and a bad case for having a phone alert system in lieu of having a siren system.
If you’re in an area with poor cell reception, LIKE MANY PARTS OF THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY, your phone is a weight in your pocket. It’s silent, provides no useful information about any emergency, and isn’t in the same class as a siren system.
Different geographic areas benefit from different systems or combinations of systems. There is not any one single solution that works for everyone everywhere.
If your in an area with poor siren coverage it provides no useful information.
And you seem to conveniently ignore my mention of weather radios. Radio towers cover a much wider area than any siren.
I’m not disputing that statement. But you said you couldn’t hear YOUR local siren. I’m stating that my local siren system is plenty loud enough to be heard in a house with closed windows and interior noise.
Again, that wasn’t your point. And I just stated that there would need to be a shitload of sirens to warn everybody in the paths of the floods. But, as I, and many others, stated above, much of the Texas hill country that was flooded does NOT have cell coverage. And it was also discussed upthread that the lack of weather radios was a major shortcoming last week.
There is some truth to that but there are systems that are more cost effective and have better coverage. Telephone and radio. It’s not 1950. Technology has moved on.
Radios (inc weather radios) have existed for a long time. No one in, say, 1970 was saying “Well, I guess we have radios now so no reason to have weather sirens” so it feels sorta weird to use them as a justification here in 2025. Probably because part of a siren’s function is to let you know to, ya know, maybe turn on your radio or otherwise try to get news on what that siren’s all about.
Moderating:
You’ve made your point and then some. Repeating the point has become a distraction in the thread. Time to drop it and move on. Thanks.
For about ten years, I was one of the leaders for a week-long scout leadership training camp (NYLT) that was held the week before the camp opened for regular campers. Part of the camp staff training was a test of the county-run tornado siren on the camp property, testing the radios each staff member carried, instructions on where to go for a tornado (the shower building, with its cinder block walls, was the safest place), meeting spots for evacuations, etc. And for as many years I went to camps with my son’s troop, where the first day camp-wide orientation included similar emergency instructions. If every camp hadn’t already had it in their new arrivals orientation plans before, they certainly do now, and if not, parents will be insisting on it.
At large manufacturing site I worked at, they tested the emergency loudspeaker warning system every month. The funny part was “If you cannot clearly hear this message, please inform…” We always chuckled, because how do you know that you didn’t hear the message? At least it was a monthly test, so you could plan for it. Some guys would go to remote restrooms to see if the message was audible there (it was).
Oh crud…
The right wing conspiracy theorists and the EPA Trump appointee, are doing their media malpractice with the Texas floods…
Then either they test them at a lower volume or you have a completely crap siren system. I’ve lived among tornado sirens all my life. I still do.
I also have some hearing loss due to middle age. Yet when they test the ones in my area (which they do on a regular basis) I hear them, even if the TV is on, or I’m listening to music or video, making noise doing something else around the house yes, even with windows shut. The only time I haven’t heard them when in 2008 when actual building debris and tree parts were falling on my home which pretty much drowned out everything else, which is not a typical situation.
ONLY if there is cell phone service in the area. Cell coverage is still not universal.
Yes, there is a LOT of merit in use of cell phones to alert people. I fully approve of that as yet another avenue to inform people.
My information - as always, subject to change with new information - is that cell coverage is spotty in the Guadalupe River area where the greatest death occurred. You basically have to be already on top of high ground, which does people lower down no good, and even then there are areas with absolutely no cell service. So somebody has to come up with the money to install those towers and maintain them. It’s the same problem as with the sirens - no one wanted to pay for them. They prioritized saving money over long term safety.
It has also been reported that the cell phone “codeRED” system for that area was a service that people had to opt in for. If you don’t sign up ahead of time you don’t get the alert. (Nevermind that 90 minute delay in activating it) This is not how I think an emergency alert system for life-or-death situations should be run. Especially not in an area with a lot of camp sites, meaning people from outside the area are there and not only are less likely to opt-in than residents but are also quite likely to be unaware that it exists at all. If you’re going to use cell phones for alerts then you need to blast out to everyone within range of a particular tower or towers regardless of opting in or out or where they’re from or who their phone provider might be or any other variable.
So, while I do agree with your advocacy of cell phone alerts in areas with cell phone coverage the Guadalupe River area in question did not have reliable or universal cell phone coverage. Sure, the alert should have been sent - informing some people, those capable of receiving the signal who had opted into the service - is better than not informing people. We already know that some people were able to relay information to others over their phones so it would have gotten word out and helped. But it would not have reached everyone and we’d still be looking at a tragedy, even if it would have been a smaller one. Still worth the effort.
Quite a few people don’t wear their phones 24/7.
The siren is to alert you that there is a serious problem and for you to seek more information. It works whether or not you happen to have your phone on you, whether or not you remembered to charge it, etc. It gets your attention.
I’m a big fan of using multiple channels to alert people to life-or-death hazards. Sirens have a role to play, just like cell phones and NOAA radios.
But your impression that cell phone service is universal is, alas, incorrect. There are many places in the US where cell coverage is poor to completely non-existent. If you wish to declare that people in such areas should carry NOAA radios and other means of communication I would absolutely agree. In fact, when I go camping with friends in such an area (something I try to do at least once a year because I like the woods) we do, in fact, carry other means of being alerted to danger. Not everyone is that level of paranoid cautious. So the alert siren (which is not just for tornadoes but any serious hazard) on the island we camp on serves to alert people who are in areas without cell phone coverage. No, it doesn’t give much detail, but it does tell you to wake the hell up and pay attention, which is key for doing anything else.
So, in some areas, it’s sirens that have a better coverage than cell phones. You may not live or spend time in such an area, but many, many people do.
Note to mods: did not see the yellow post until after I posted the above. Sorry if I goofed, will also drop it.
I’d just like to add, as someone who’s heard more alarms in the past two years than any of you have heard in your entire lives, that redundancy is always good. Sirens? Good. Cell phone alerts? Also good. A dedicated silent FM radio station that only sounds alerts? Good as well. All of them together: even better.
My perspective is skewed by my family’s past association with scouting. Scouts take safety and emergency preparedness EXTREMELY seriously. (Uh - their motto is “Be prepared.”) At various times I thought OVERLY seriously.
Of course, as I typed this, I decided to google accidents at Philmont - a large scout wilderness area/campground.
Here is a sad first person account by an editor of the Texas Monthly. The family built a vacation house above the 100 year flood plain–and it was washed away:
The River House Broke. We Rushed in the River: On July 4, the Guadalupe ripped our home from its pillars, pulling my family into its waters and into the night. Then morning came.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-flood-firsthand-account/
My God. I defy anybody to read that story and not tear up.
Thanks for sharing.
Tearing up here too. I know that hindsight is 20/20 but I can’t help wondering if someone in the house thought of life vests or any kind of improvised flotation device for the kids. Maybe they did, but just had no time to do anything about it and are traumatized with guilt, thinking about what they could have done differently. Terrible for them.
Punchline being that anyplace in North America that has ever flooded in recorded history will flood again … soon.
And places that have almost “never” flooded, or only almost but not quite ever flooded in the ~250 year history of White folks in North America will in fact flood regularly in the next century.
We can either act in accordance with that reality, or pretend it doesn’t exist and watch Mother Nature bend us over a log and have her way with us all.
As I write this, we’re under a tornado warning, but the worst of it appears to have passed. My neighbor, who lives on the 3rd floor, came knocking with her 3-year-old son, and I offered to feed them and she accepted (reluctantly). I had some chicken fingers and Tater Tots, and when it was ready, she realized that he was more interested in some yarn associated with my latest knitting project, and she just l
(three hours later)
My Internet went out as I was writing this. The low spot on the slab my apartment building is on has led to a wet spot in my main bedroom carpet; this has happened before, and I’ll clean it up and it will be OK.
She asked her her food “to go”, if you will, so I gave her some containers I don’t need back and she went back upstairs. She actually packed a bag with a change of clothes for both of them, and her medication, in case things got REALLY bad. Her SO was at work.
100 year floods are going to start happening every 10 years. Those who believe the deniers may be in serious pain.
Where I live we have to deal with earthquakes. We might ignore the possibility of the big one, but we don’t. The new Bay Bridge was designed to not only withstand a truly massive earthquake, but be usable soon after it. It cost a lot of money. I just got my foundation reinforced, mostly paid for by the county. I’m sure I wouldn’t have without that incentive.