Saturday, July 23, 2011
Twitter buzzes with Downers Grove tweets in the middle of a dark and rainy night.
Updated: 3 p.m., July 23 Downers Grove sounded its storm sirens at about 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning and again about five minutes later as a severe thunderstorm was giving way to heavy rain. The National Weather Service carried a flash flood alert, warning of continuing heavy rains, but did not issue a tornado warning. However, several western suburbs, including Darien and Wheaton, sounded their sirens following reports of an unconfirmed "rotation" sighted in Bensonville, according to Twitter reports by NBC Chicago. Downers Grove firefighter Greg Curry tweeted that a tornado had been spotted at Butterfield Road and Route 53. The sirens were sounded under new guidelines adopted by the village following a powerful June 21 storm, which was …
Monday, July 11, 2011
Village sounds sirens about 8:15 a.m., as the worst of the storm was past.
A severe thunderstorm blasted Downers Grove at about 8 a.m. this morning, but village storm sirens didn't activate until 8:15 a.m., under new guidelines adopted after the June 21 tornado. "The village activated the outdoor warning system due to the passing severe thunderstorm that exhibited characteristics described in the recently revised siren activation policy," according to the village website. "These qualities included severe winds in excess of 70 mph that caused damage to trees and power lines. In making the decision to activate the siren, the village relied on information obtained from the National Weather Service, monitoring of radar which indicated that Downers Grove was in the direct path of the storm, and information from public…
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
If storm conditions like June 21 happen again, Downers Grove residents will now hear a siren. And while storm cleanup is almost done, many trees are gone.
After the June 21 tornado came and went with no siren notification, the village changed the policy, broadening the criteria for sounding the siren. The new policy and the village’s overall storm response were the main focus of Tuesday's Village Council meeting. The new siren policy went into effect July 1. “These changes allow staff to activate the siren during the conditions that were present on June 21, including the National Weather Service issuance of a blanket tornado warning when there is no visual confirmation of a tornado,” said Village Manager Dave Fieldman. “The new policy allows staff to activate the sirens based on info available form multiple weather reporting sources and is consistent with the technology that is now being …
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Thursday, June 23, 2011
As a member of DU-COMM, Woodridge activates its sirens for all dangerous storms.
Downers Grove's decision to hew to a policy that requires the sighting of a funnel cloud before activating storm sirens has proven controversial since Tuesday's major storm, which was later revealed to contain a small tornado undetected at the time. Some residents in the South High School area heard Woodridge sirens sounding in advance of the storm and wondered about the discrepency in village protocols for activating the alarms. Gina Grady, deputy chief of operations for the Woodridge Police Department, said her town's alarms were sounded by the consolidated dispatch center of which Woodridge is a member. The town is one of 34 DuPage County communities participating in DU-COMM, the DuPage Public Safety Communications agency based in …
William Vollrath
9:24 pm on Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Thank you NWS. Also, as I stated easrlier, the system activation needs to center on trained personnel using weather radar, not what someone does or doesn't think they see. more ›