Webster: Sirens not in areas where funnel clouds were spotted

Even some longtime residents may have wondered why emergency warning sirens remained silent when funnel clouds were spotted in this area early Monday evening.

A severe thunderstorm warning from northeastern Hood County to Godley in Johnson County quickly escalated into a tornado warning. Jay Webster, Hood County’s emergency management coordinator, told the HCN that Hood County storm spotters were notified at 5:19 p.m. to start scanning the skies. 

“At 6:10 (p.m.) we got a call that there was possible rotation,” Webster told the Hood County News.

Eventually a funnel cloud was spotted east of Acton, and it caused some damage. A video of a funnel cloud spotted in the sky in the vicinity of Whataburger was shown on at least one D-FW Metroplex TV station. A brief Facebook video post taken from around Arrow Feed on Highway 377 in Granbury was posted on Facebook.

Matt Stalley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Fort Worth, said that a funnel cloud spotted near Davis Road and Highway 377 was reported, resulting in several homes being damaged, along with carport and tree damage.

Webster said that he later heard from the NWS that the storm in Hood County had produced a tornado rated as an EF-0. An EF-0 has winds between 40 and 72 mph.   

The narrative posted online by the NWS for Monday’s storm in Hood County states: “A tornado formed along Davis Road in east Granbury and traveled slowly north-northwest. Spotter videos show the tornado was occurring for approximately 2 minutes with debris consisting mainly of leaves and small branches being lofted into the air. Damage to a carport and some mature trees occurred along the path. The tornado dissipated as it approached Highway 377. Maximum winds were estimated at 65 mph with a width of 50 yards.”

‘A MISCONCEPTION’

Despite what many people may have assumed, the sirens actually belong to the Comanche Peak Nuclear Plant in Somervell County, rather than belonging to Hood County.

Webster noted that the primary reason for those civil defense sirens being in place is to notify residents if there is ever an impending emergency at the nuclear plant, including the worst-case scenario — a nuclear meltdown.

Webster said that Hood County “doesn’t own any” weather sirens. 

“That’s a misconception. Those sirens were never designed for that,” Webster said.

The Comanche Peak Nuclear Plant has 70 emergency sirens in all, covering Somervell County and part of southern Hood County. But their primary function is for civil defense, not for tornado warnings.

“We do have permission to set them off,” Webster said, adding, “I think we had two separate funnel clouds,” although the fact that they were so “rain-wrapped” made the job of the weather spotters more difficult.

Emergency sirens never sounded that evening, but Webster explained that the specific areas where funnel clouds were confirmed are not equipped with emergency sirens.

“None (of the sirens) were located in the path of the tornado. Nobody that needed to hear them would have heard them. We don’t have one siren past Lowe’s Home Improvement,” Webster said.

Lt. Johnny Rose with the Hood County Sheriff’s Office said he did not hear of any injuries suffered as a result of the storm.

CODE RED LIMITATIONS

As for the county’s CodeRed notification system — which sends emergency warnings via email to those who have signed up to receive them — has proved to be inadequate in such rapidly-developing storm systems. Webster said that the CodeRed version currently in place for Hood County is a “Volkswagen” model compared to two other, far more expensive ones.

“We are limited on what we can do with that,” Webster said. “Things happened really fast.”

Webster noted that the county’s dispatch supervisor John Hurley scrambled into action Tuesday, sending CodeRed notifications to approximately 38,000 subscribers.

“Seventy-five percent of them did get it,” Webster noted, adding that  about 37 percent of the messages went to answering machines, and 2 percent gave a busy signal.

Webster said that the county’s contract with CodeRed will be up at the end of May, and noted, “We will be looking at other vendors.”

IPAWS SYSTEM

Webster, who has been on the job here since Feb. 15, 2020, said he is researching alternatives to CodeRed — to upgrade from the current “Volkswagen” grade. Whatever system the County Commissioners Court approves, Webster intends to have one that can be integrated with FEMA’s modern Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS).

“Hopefully by the end of June we will be integrating a new system, and you will be able to manage your own account — how you want to be notified,” said Webster, who had been had been a DPS patrol captain based in Hurst before he was hired by Hood County. “I don’t think we will have a problem with our Commissioners Court getting a better program in place. It’s about helping the public.”

Once a new notification system is approved and available, Webster said the word will be put out in every outlet possible — via the Hood County News, Hood County’s website, the city of Granbury’s website, school websites, school information officers, the Chamber of Commerce, and all of the associated Facebook pages.

THE DAMAGE

In the Granbury city limits, damage to a metal roof was reported on the west side of town at a church at the intersection of Pirate Drive and Highway 377, as well as fence damage at the Brazos River Drive-in on West Pearl Street, near Granbury High School. Debris from the damage at that church was believed to have been the cause of an electrical power outage in that part of town that lasted about six hours.

“We had a couple of videos sent in to us that had a tornado touch down — for 30 seconds or so,” Stalley said, noting that spot was about three miles east of Granbury’s city limit. Most of the other damage he was aware of looked “more like straight-line winds.”