The City of Weyburn's emergency alert system was put to its first test on July 13, when a severe thunderstorm came through the Weyburn area, and went on to produce damaging hail and winds that included an uncomfirmed tornado in the Halbrite-Griffin areas.
While damages were not as bad in the city, the alert was out for those people who have opted-in to the system, and they were given the heads-up for the severe weather that hit shortly after. Due to the unpredictability of summer weather, had the storm in fact brought a funnel cloud or damaging volumes of hailstones to the city, those who were alerted would have been able to prepare for the onset of the weather.
As Fire Chief Steve Debienne stated, "If we can't reach you, we can't alert you."
The new citizen alert system has all listed phone numbers in its system, but the city is asking that people tell them the preferred way to contact them with an emergency alert. In this day of the smart phone and the Internet accessible on handheld device, many people will want to be contacted via an e-mail and/or a text, while others will still prefer a call on their land-line or at work.
For the city to know, each citizen needs to tell the city, which is quickly and easily done by going onto the City of Weyburn's website at www.weyburn.ca, and clicking onto the box identified for the citizen alert system.
From the first alert sent out, the system worked well, with all those who had opted-in so far alerted, and some 70-odd of those recipients did not respond to confirm they were recipients.
With the assurance that the system works the way it's supposed, more people need to sign up, because there is no way to know if or when a severe storm, such as with intense lightning, hail or a tornado, might quickly sweep up and hit the city. The weather cannot be prevented, but the consequences of the damages caused can perhaps be mitigated and minimized to a degree by people being forewarned in time to get to safety.
As the fire chief noted, after the storms went through that weekend, "All we need is for more people to sign up. If there really had been a tornado coming, I'm sure you'd want to know to get out of the way as soon as possible."
Don't delay; get signed up and be safe.
