Metro Council Calls For Tornado Siren Upgrades

NASHVILLE, TN -- Most of the attention at Tuesday's Metro Council focused on whether the council would approve an investigation of the mayor, stopgap funds for Nashville General Hospital, and a referendum for transit funding. All of those big-headline items passed.

But the council also passed a resolution asking for a more accurate storm warning system for the county.

The 93 tornado sirens in Davidson County sound if any part of the county is affected by a tornado warning. That means a siren in Joelton fires up if there's a tornado warning in Priest Lake, more than 20 miles to the southeast.

That system harkens back to the era when the National Weather Service issued its weather warnings for an entire county, regardless of where the threat existed. Technological and forecasting improvements led to the NWS going to the "polygon system" in 2007 with far more specific warning areas.

Nevertheless, even if only a small portion of Davidson County is included in a warning, all 93 sirens go off, as they did Nov. 18 when just the very southeastern edge of the county was included in the warning area on a storm moving east and out of the county.

Some on the Metro Council think the county-wide alert can cause unnecessary panic and possibly boy-who-cries-wolf complacency. Thus, the council passed a resolution Tuesday asking the Office of Emergency Management to learn the cost of hardware and software upgrades which would allow for the sirens to match the newer polygon-style warning areas.

Image via Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County