A new, automated tornado siren system is now live in DuPage County.
DuPage Public Safety Communications (DU-COMM) launched the Fulton system on Thursday, calling the upgrade a “significant advancement in public safety technology.”
The deputy director for the intergovernmental agency, which serves 45 police and fire districts throughout DuPage County, says the system “will activate the sirens automatically without requiring human intervention.”
“Previously, it required someone to read a National Weather Service (NWS) alert and interpret the area of the warning, and then manually activate the sirens based on the map,” said Tyler Benjamin, the Deputy Director for DU-COMM.
Now, the system will detect the area of the map that needs to be alerted and activate the sirens automatically.
The system will automatically activate an outdoor warning siren only if the local zones fall within the overlap of that specific national warning polygon, according to DU-COMM.
“It’s more precise, so instead of activating sirens across a wider area, this system targets those activations to the zones directly threatened, according to the NWS warning,” said Jessica Robb, the executive director, for DU-COMM.
May can be an active tornado month in Illinois. Nearly 80% of all tornadoes in the state happen between April 1-June 30, according to the NWS.
Last year, Illinois saw more tornadoes than anywhere else in the country, with 32 reported during a derecho on one day, July 15, 2024, in the Greater Chicago forecast area.
Surrounding Cook and Kane counties do not operate outdoor sirens.
In a statement provided to NBC 5, a spokesperson for Kane County said “most municipalities do.”
The statement goes on to say, “Many of them are automatically activated based on a NWS tornado warning if they are in the warned area.”
The county “can also send a message via phone, text or email from [its] mass notification system “Code Red.”
In a separate statement to NBC 5, a spokesperson for Cook County said it offers “opt-in text message alerting through the AlertCook platform, which automatically sends National Weather Service advisories, watches and warnings to subscribers along with other alerts Cook County chooses to send.”
Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management says it operates 112 sirens located on poles one to two miles apart throughout the city to “ensure total citywide coverage.”
A statement to NBC 5 said, “Should a tornado warning be issued in the City by the NWS, our sirens are activated manually by OEMC personnel in the affected area of the city based on the NWS warning.”
“EWS may be activated by individual siren, by siren zone (there are 12 siren zones in Chicago), or citywide.”
Experts say, outdoor sirens are intended for those outdoors to seek shelter, and encourage people to have multiple ways to get alerts, including weather radios and smart phone notifications turned on.
“Technology is just one part. The most important part is how you react to that siren,” said Robb.
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