Many people in Harrisburg heard storm sirens go off on Monday morning, even though there was no severe weather in the area. Officials in Harrisburg are now investigating why those sirens went off.
HARRISBURG, Ill (WSIL)-- Many people in Harrisburg heard storm sirens go off on Monday morning, even though there was no severe weather in the area.
Officials in Harrisburg are now investigating why those sirens went off.Â
Emma Unthank was at work when the tornado sirens went off. The nursing home worker says it upset her patients.
“I got to work at four this morning and all of our residents were going crazy,� Unthank said.
When they found out it was a false alarm they went back to normal, but they were wondering what happened.
“We were like, what? We didn't know anything today was going to go on. We were a little confused,� Unthank said.
Harrisburg’s Mayor John McPeek says he received calls from emergency officials trying to figure out how they started sounding off.
“They don't know if they got interfered with another town or what happened. But something definitely went wrong for them to go off like that because they should not do that,� Mayor McPeek said.
He says the emergency management director is investigating it.
“Sometimes they'll go off if they're doing maintenance on them, but there was no maintenance being done on them today. So there's no explanation of why they went off. And once again, the city apologizes for them going off,� McPeek said.
McPeek says they typically test the alarms on the first Tuesday of the month at 10:00 am.
“You know, we have had a tornado touch down here and we've had numerous warnings in the past. So the sirens are very important to the community and the community listens for them,� McPeek said.
McPeek says if people are not sure, he advises they should take cover anyway.
“They should know anytime there's a storm coming,� McPeek says. “Pay attention to the weather, and if Harrisburg gets a warning of a storm a county over or a county below us, we're gonna let those alarms off just so our citizens are aware that there's a storm coming.�
He says his office will try to make sure no false alarms like this happen again and they have already started making improvements.
“I want the citizens of Harrisburg to know we recently purchased two new sirens,� McPeek says. “And the ones we have, we're updating them to a newer version.�
McPeek says with the two new sirens, Harrisburg will have five in town. And Unthank says with it being a rainy day they’re happy there was not a tornado.
“It started calming down and we got those messages on our phone and we all calmed down,� Unthank said.
And officials are hoping the weather stays calm too.Â
