Just a drill: Tornado alerts in Kansas City part of Severe Weather Preparedness Week
The sound of sirens and text alerts on Tuesday morning in the Kansas City area puzzled some people as clear, sunny skies didn’t hint at severe weather.
Don’t worry. It was just a drill.
It’s Severe Weather Preparedness Week and the outdoor sirens in Kansas and Missouri were sounded to get people ready for the upcoming severe weather season. The Emergency Alert System also sent out a text to people’s cell phones saying ”take shelter now.” The text did not indicate it was a drill.
The NWS in Kansas City tweeted at the same time: “Drill ** Drill ** Drill. This is a tornado DRILL.”
“If this were an actual tornado warning, consider what you would do to shelter and stay safe,” the tweet said. “Let’s spread the message as if it were a real tornado warning by retweeting to show the power of social media.”
The drill, however, didn’t go off quite as planned. The alert to people cell phones read:
“TORNADO WARNING in this area until 10:15 AM. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris.”
The weather service later sent out an explanation on Twitter that the warning was properly coded as a “TEST tornado warning.” But somewhere along the way it was misinterpreted and went out as an actual warning.
“This morning our office properly coded a test tornado warning and sent it out as we have every year for severe weather preparedness week,” Andy Bailey, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Kansas City said in an email. “We followed our test warning instructions verbatim.
“Somewhere above us in the Wireless Emergency Alert chain it was misinterpreted and disseminated as an actual warning. Our headquarters is investigating a cause. To my knowledge this impacted all offices in Kansas and Missouri participating in the test today.”
The weather service in it’s national Twitter account said the error with the Wireless Emergency Alert sent a tornado warning to people in several Midwestern states.
“We have identified the cause and resolved the issue,” the weather service said. “We apologize for the confusion.”
The weather service further explained that new software implemented last week allowed the test to go out as an actual warning.
“The software is fixed,” the weather service said.
People were not happy with the drill, many sounding off on Twitter concerned about the mistake.
This story was originally published March 2, 2021 at 10:33 AM.
