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Auntie Em! Auntie Em!

Today's paper carries encouraging news for the yokels of rural Shawnee County, Kan.:

Daily Dose: County has funds to repair sirens
The Capital-Journal
Published Saturday, March 22, 2008

Money to repair two sirens that failed to sound during last week's tornado drill is available in Shawnee County Emergency Management's budget.

Dave Sterbenz, emergency management director, said $68,000 is allocated to purchase a new siren, if needed, and repair damaged ones. Sterbenz said sirens cost about $22,000 and that emergency management will do whatever it takes to keep the existing units up and running.

The whole story, such as it is, lives here.
To the outside world, Kansas is known mostly for tornadoes (see photo below), and to be fair, we had 137 of them reported last year. This understates the total, since the number doesn't include the ones that touched down in the parts of the state that nobody actually bothers to visit, but it's still pretty impressive.
The annual statewide tornado drill has been a fixture of our civic life for as long as we can remember. This year, it was part of Severe Weather Awareness Week, and the National Weather Service explained what to do on their web site:

Area residents should treat the drill as if it were an actual tornado emergency. The purpose of the annual drill is to test everyone's readiness for life-threatening severe weather events such as tornadoes, flash floods, large hail, and damaging winds.

Now, this is where it begins to get confusing. The idea of having a drill is for everybody to do what they would do if there should be a real tornado. We thought that meant going to a shelter and waiting until the all clear sounds and it's safe to go back outside. Turns out we were wrong.
We happened to be coming up the steps of the Shawnee County Courthouse a couple of years ago when the sirens went off. Not realizing that it was Annual Statewide Tornado Drill Day, we thought there was a real tornado and went inside, expecting to spend some time down in the basement.
Not a chance. The sheriff's deputies on duty at the front door immediately told us to go back outside, because only county employees were allowed inside the building during tornado drills.
When we were working for the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services a few years later, we watched the same thing happen to the people visiting the welfare office. We asked the Facilities Manager about it, and he told us that, yes, the building had a tornado shelter but there was an official policy that only department employees were allowed to use it. Anybody else who happened to be caught inside during a real tornado was to be sent back outside to take their chances with the weather.
Obviously, you can't have people coming in off the street and wandering around the office unsupervised. On the other hand, refusing to let them into the tornado shelter says a lot about how the state civil service looks at the people they're supposed to be serving.
We're not sure that the Shawnee County Emergency Management really cares whether those sirens go off or not. Even if they work, the hoi polloi will still be pretty much on their own.

Full post as published by West Neanderthal Drive on March 22, 2008 (boomark / email).