Tue Dec 09, 2008 6:53 pm
I used to know Milo Thompson, who was the Emergency Management director for Jackson County. He was one who believed that you can never have too much of a good thing, or too many sirens to warn the public. After he retired from the Michigan State Police in the early 1970s, he went to work on the Jackson County Civil Defense program, but found that a lot of communities wanted to do everything their own way.
Ironically, the Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak of 1965, is something that a lot of people have gone to great lengths to forget. Television meteorologist Blake Naftel and I, worked on an extensive Web page detailing the events of April 11, 1965. Sadly, he received hundreds of emails requesting that the page be taken down, as it was wrong to glorify the events of this tragic event. Never mind that this Web page was for public education purposes, they felt it was just wrong to publish the events of that fateful day.
Nine years later, The "Super Tornado Outbreak" of April 3, 1974, once again spelled out the fact that Southern Lower Michigan is indeed in the infamous "Tornado Alley." Around 2000 hours that evening, a large F2 tornado tore a path through Hillsdale County, entering into Jackson County and lifting north of Clark Lake. Sadly, this storm killed two people, as it completely demolished a mobile home park near Hillsdale. Once again, the public complained about bot being warned about the approaching severe weather.
According to Milo, he said that both Hillsdale and Jackson Counties, used this event drum up support for more sirens across the county, but many local towns balked at the idea of paying for new sirens. Their mentality, especially in Jackson County was, "Why worry about it, we haven't been hit yet." Sadly, this attitude still prevails in many areas to this day.
Sincerely yours,
Ron W.
"When your siren's a failin', chances are it's a Whelen."