False Alarms

The sirens went off here on Tuesday three times. No, there were no planes bombing the metropolis of Hudson; no, there were no tornadoes, or even wall clouds. Actually, there was blue sky peaking out from the clouds, and not one drop of rain fell all day.

When I was a kid, if the siren sounded you threw your body headlong for the basement because there was a tornado on top of your house. Now when they go off I find myself tuning them out, knowing that most likely it is only a severe thunderstorm, somewhere in St. Croix county. Thus the three sirens on Tuesday: all were storms up near the northern border of our expansive county, near New Richmond.

When this really irks me is at 3am when the ear-splitting ghoulish wail wakes up parents and children alike, sending the house into fear-induced insomnia. For a thunderstorm in New Richmond!

Beyond the annoyance of the excessive alarms is my fear that someday, when it really matters (ie when a tornado really is on top of my or your house), we might not listen. As in the story about the boy who cried "wolf!", will we just assume all is well when it really isn't, because we have heard the false cry of danger too many times? Hope not. But I keep thinking that we should go back to the "old days" when the siren sounded for actual tornado warnings, not just dime-sized hail and a little wind, and definitely not for a town that's 20 miles away!

I feel like Andy Rooney.