Did you hear tornado sirens but didn’t get an alert in Johnson County? Here’s why

Did you hear tornado sirens last night, but didn’t get any alerts to your phone or email about dangerous weather? If you live in Johnson County, you’re not alone.

An expert at the county’s emergency management division told The Star that many residents heard sirens who weren’t in immediate danger of a tornado. That’s because the division has only minutes to activate sirens across the county.

“Because of how quickly the storm developed, the response time we had was severely limited,” said Claire Canaan, the division’s assistant director for community preparedness. “We literally had seconds to minutes to activate sirens and put out those notifications… we made a call to the 911 dispatch emergency communications center. They’re sort of a backup for when we need to activate the tornado sirens.”

Normally, the emergency management division has a few hours to get into the office, monitor the weather and activate sirens only in certain areas of the county. Last night, there was no time to do so. Instead, they relied on 911 dispatch for immediate siren warnings.

“They only have the capability to put out an all-call,” Canaan said. “Every siren in Johnson County was activated this morning. However, the Notify JoCo system put out the alerts [only] to the areas that were within that tornado warning… they received additional phone alerts, text alerts, [and] emails that they had opted in for.”

Officials in Kansas City said Wednesday that emergency notification systems worked as intended during the storm. Johnson County residents can opt in to Notify JoCo alerts here.

Do you have more questions about emergency preparedness in Kansas City? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.

This story was originally published June 8, 2022 at 1:52 PM.

Natalie Wallington

The Kansas City Star

Natalie Wallington was a reporter on The Star’s service journalism team with a focus on policy, labor, sustainability and local utilities from fall 2021 until early 2025. Her coverage of the region’s recycling system won a 2024 Feature Writing award from the Kansas Press Association.