'Oops': Brentwood Says Sorry After Tornado Siren Snafu

BRENTWOOD, TN -- Tornado warning sirens across Brentwood sounded at 5 p.m. Sunday as a line of strong, pop-up storms approached the city. One problem: there were no tornado warnings issued for Brentwood - or anywhere else in Middle Tennessee, for that matter.

For three hours, residents were left scratching their heads as they wondered what happened or if they were ever in danger from a rogue twister no one in the meteorological community seemed to know about.

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Around 8 p.m. Sunday, the city tweeted its explanation.

The city's director of community relations Deanna Lambert, who sent the tweet, told The Tennessean that the city intended to send out an alert regarding lightning in the area for people who might be outside ahead of an approaching storm, but no amount of technology and preparation can counteract human error.

Perhaps the best response came from the Spring Hill Police, who tweeted to Brentwood that it could have been worse and sent a link to a story about the errant early-warning alert sent to Hawaiians regarding a nuclear missile launch. Tennessean reporter Natalie Allison asked, reasonably, which button the city meant to hit instead. And one person said they'd acquired footage from city hall:

Though Brentwood chose to put a humorous spin on the botch, the mistake, well-intentioned though it was, exposes the shortcomings of existing early-warning systems, some of which rely on hardware dating back to Cold War civil defense systems.

For example, all 93 of Metro Nashville's tornado sirens sound if a warning is issued for any part of the county, a protocol dating back to the old National Weather Service practice of issuing warnings for entire counties. Technological improvements now allow far better tracking and prediction of tornadoes, so the NWS went to the more refined "polygon system" more than a decade ago. Nevertheless, if Joelton is included in a warning polygon, sirens sound in Priest Lake, more than 20 miles away. The Metro Council passed a resolution in November calling for a study regarding updates to warning sirens.

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