FORNEY, Texas — Last Saturday, the small town of Valley View heard the roar of a tornado that swept through the city. What they didn’t hear was a sound of warning.
On Thursday, the Valley View Fire Department confirmed in a Facebook post that the town’s warning sirens malfunctioned during the tornado that killed seven people and injured hundreds of others.
In the small but growing town of Forney about 70 miles from Valley View, Deputy Fire Chief John Holcomb says he is religiously checking the sirens and system.
He showed our crew one of the 12 sirens that are in town.
One sits right next to the fire station.
“A lot of people ask, 'how long does it take [to alert people]?' I say a matter of seconds,” said Holcomb.
It’s a fairly new system in the city that was installed three years ago. The system allows Holcomb to sit at his computer and look at all the sirens. The information will even tell him if one does malfunction, and Holcomb said maintenance comes within 24 hours.
“Anytime the national service issues a PolyGram, a tornado warning if it touches anywhere on that green circle, it's automatically going to set our sirens off,” said Holcomb.
We checked with other cities around DFW. We found information from Dallas, Plano, and Fort Worth.
Dallas has 178 sirens spread throughout the city. Their sirens are tested on the first Wednesday of every month at noon, weather permitting.
The city of Fort Worth tests its sirens the same day. A spokesperson with the city said they manually signal the sirens, but they are working to move to a fully automatic system soon.
Plano also operates on a manual system. They have 43 sirens throughout the city. The Director of Emergency Management told WFAA their current systems were installed in 2000.
Forney is growing and with that growth, Holcomb said there will be a need for more sirens.
“We're able to come in through budget with the city and add a siren into that area,” said Holcomb.