Mt. Prospect, Downers Grove will review emergency siren policies

The villages of Mount Prospect and Downers Grove will be reviewing their emergency siren activation policies after tornadoes touched down in both towns Tuesday night without a wailing warning to residents.

Although sirens in some neighboring towns of both villages were sounded as the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning, both Mount Prospect village and Downers Grove village officials said they stuck to their policies.

“That was a macro warning, it covers a fairly wide area,” said Dave Strahl, assistant village manager for Mount Prospect. “The weather data available at the time did not provide information related to a tornado.”

Strahl said Mount Prospect relies on the Northwest Central Dispatch which utilizes a private weather service to make those decisions, but he said the village will review the storm response and hopes to improve its policy.

“We have tried to narrow the focus down to working with central dispatch to try to pinpoint events that are imminent,” he said. “I know a lot of people feel on-edge why it didn't go off.”

Northwest Central Dispatch subscribes to a private weather service in order to provide more accurate local forecasts, which reduce false siren activations, according to a village bulletin regarding its warning sirens. The bulletin also states that the sirens will sound whenever there is a “tornado warning.”

“The main point from our review is that the best information available at the time indicated there was no tornado on the ground imminent to Mount Prospect,” Strahl said. “If you run them too often people don't believe that there is a dangerous situation imminent.”

The relatively minor EF-1 tornadoes were not spotted by meteorologists Tuesday night, but were confirmed during National Weather Service damage surveys conducted Wednesday.

Downers Grove's tornado siren policies, unlike Mount Prospect, rely on the National Weather Service's warning system, but it will only sound the sirens if a funnel cloud is visually spotted within five miles of the village border.

“During that night none of the triggers or criteria for sounding the sirens were met,” said Doug Kozlowski, Downers Grove director of communications. “It's time for us to re-look at our policy and re-evaluate the criteria.”

Although a funnel cloud was spotted in Sugar Grove about 25 minutes before the tornado touched down in Downers Grove, that did not meet the 5-mile criteria, Kozlowski said.

“Small tornadoes lasting just several minutes, like the one experienced on Tuesday evening, are difficult to identify, particularly at night when visibility is poor,” a statement on the village's website read.

Northwest Central Dispatch could not be reached for comment Thursday.