Officials in Bollinger County ask for many more tornado sirens

A week ago, people throughout Bollinger County, Missouri, were jolted awake by an emergency warning on their cellphones around 3 a.m. Some have a weather radio that warned them a tornado was coming.

There were no tornado sirens prior to the twister that ripped through Glen Allen, Missouri.

Woodland Fire Protection District Chief and Bollinger County Coroner Calvin Troxell said Monday, April 10, that he awakened and gave the direction to activate Marble Hill's two tornado sirens. The sheriff's dispatcher tried, but nothing happened.

So Troxell said he had to go to the two siren locations and manually activate the sirens while staying just steps ahead of the twister. Some people in Marble Hill heard the siren go off; some heard it outside their homes but not inside.

People in Glen Allen didn't hear a thing until the tornado came crashing through.

Troxell told the Bollinger County commissioners Monday that the experience made him resolve to not stop until he had convinced the county and state authorities to upgrade the county's tornado warning sirens.

"I'm calling for eight new sirens for the county," Troxell said. Ideally, there would be two for Marble Hill, as there are now, and one for each village and town throughout the county.

What Bollinger County has now are the two sirens in Marble Hill that are operated by an analog system that somehow has been disconnected or is no longer functional. The county's computer systems are all digital except for the antiquated tornado sirens.

Troxell declared he would start with U.S. Rep. Jason Smith during his tour of Glen Allen later that day, and every other person he could think of to ask them to find the money for a new, digital warning system to alert residents to possible devastating conditions. The county commissioners agreed.

"We have to make changes," he said. "In today's society, there is no excuse for those people not to have been warned."