Commission learns wail of tornado sirens Tuesday took some by surprise

The wail of tornado sirens took some Shawnee County residents by surprise early Tuesday evening, Shawnee County commissioners learned Thursday.

After the National Weather Service issued tornado warnings affecting the northeast and northwest parts of the county, the county’s emergency management department followed its standard practice of initially setting off outdoor sirens for three minutes countywide to get the public’s attention, said emergency management director Dusty Nichols.

After that, the department sounded those sirens in only the warned areas, Nichols told Commissioners Bob Archer, Bill Riphahn and Kevin Cook at their morning meeting.

“A lot of people really liked it because there were some people out on their lawnmowers and so forth that had no idea we had severe weather in the area,” Nichols said.

The sirens stopped sounding when the storms involved left the county going north.