I've never lived somewhere where I could hear tornado sirens indoors... And I've lived places that had tornado activity before (as in, tornados passed by within 5-10 miles while I lived there).
It's just a test of the system today, thankfully. But, that siren is impressively loud...
Ours test the first Wed. of every month. The scary part is the next closest city to us (10 minute drive on the interstate) did the monthly tests and their tornado sirens failed a couple of summers ago when there was an actual tornado warning.
Ours test the first Wed. of every month. The scary part is the next closest city to us (10 minute drive on the interstate) did the monthly tests and their tornado sirens failed a couple of summers ago when there was an actual tornado warning.
Yikes! I'll admit, I don't think this siren was loud enough to wake me up in the middle of a storm, but it's loud enough I could hear it today.
We picked up an emergency radio while we were in Korea (part of the bug-out list the military "highly recommended" we have on hand). So, I figure we'll use that for overnights if there is potential for storms...
I was _told_ there were sirens around when we lived in Missouri. But, I never heard them go off, even when I received the reports of tornados <10 miles away and took shelter in a closet at home... (no basement there)
Lol. You might just live really close to one. Though, I think I've been able to hear them from everywhere I have lived (Chicago area, Wisconsin, Iowa). It's important you can hear them!
I'm jealous you have a basement. If we get a tornado, we're basically fucked. lol. We don't even have an interior room since our house is so small. I'm not losing sleep over it or anything but it is kind of a scary thought.
Lol. You might just live really close to one. Though, I think I've been able to hear them from everywhere I have lived (Chicago area, Wisconsin, Iowa). It's important you can hear them!
I'm jealous you have a basement. If we get a tornado, we're basically fucked. lol. We don't even have an interior room since our house is so small. I'm not losing sleep over it or anything but it is kind of a scary thought.
When we were in Missouri, I had to mentally figure out what was the most secure space in the house - the only part of the house that didn't have at least some exterior wall in it was one single closet. No basement, both bathrooms had external walls, as did every other room, and all but the one closet had at least one exterior walls... So when we did have an active tornado alert, that was where I sat, with my laptop and teddy bear, for however long was needed. Whee.
This house will be much more comfortable - our spare bedroom is in the basement, so there will even be a bed down there. (there's a large window to that bedroom, but it's in a protected culvert-like thing, so it's still quite protected) And there's a rec room, bathroom, and a couple other decent sized spaces down there.
I think it is so weird to hear that some cities have different testing schedules than we do here. They test the sirens here every Saturday at noon. We can definitely hear it inside our house. Our dog also starts howling, so it is tons of fun. Worst 5 minutes of the weekend!
One time the sirens in a big shopping center went haywire. They were going off for over an hour and nobody could get them to turn off. I was trying to order Chickfila, but the sirens were deafening. I couldn't believe how much louder they were in that area!