That's the question we've been asked by viewers: Why sound the sirens? Was there a tornado? We went to the emergency managers in charge to ask them why.
"This was, I think, one of the better be safe than sorry issues." Joe Walter is director of Lucas County Emergency Management, the agency responsible for tornado sirens.
"Some public safety officers out on the street called the dispatch center and reported they thought they saw a funnel cloud."
Becky Eby was heading up Skywarn there, a network of trained weather spotters and amateur radio operators.
"We tried to get confirmation over the radio and we couldn't. We have people in Holland and Maumee and they were not seeing any rotation."
She called the National Weather Service in Cleveland. Their radar did not indicate a tornado, so they did not issue a tornado warning.
When a second officer reported cloud rotation, the sheriff's department decided to sound the sirens anyway. Were they crying wolf?
"This was somebody who maybe jumped the gun a bit. But we don't take these calls from the average citizen and automatically do the siren. We'll double check with Skywarn or with the weather service and see what they have. And then it becomes a judgment call and that's what this was last night," Joe Walter told 13abc.
"I think there needs to be a lot of training because even those of us who have done it for a long time, there are tornado lookalikes."
Many police officers and deputies do attend free National Weather Service spotter training each Spring. But it is not mandatory. Still, the policy calls for sounding the sirens if an officer reports a funnel cloud.
"We all make mistakes. But the more training you have, the better your chances of actually giving an accurate report."
The worry is the more you sound the sirens, the more used to it people will get and ignore them. E.M.A. says better safe than sorry and that a siren means go inside to safety, then use the TV and radio to find out what's happening.
