Sat Jun 28, 2008 3:22 am
A stroke of random luck (Or perhaps misfortune depending on who you ask) has given me an opportunity to hear Omaha's sirens this afternoon.
I was at a gas station on the north side of Omaha getting ready to head home, when I suddenly heard the sirens wind up. I knew there were some storms coming in, and I had planned to leave and drive ahead of the storms because they were not tornadic at the time. But as soon as I heard the sirens, I decided against that and headed back to my friend's house to ride out the storm. A couple hours later I was able to head home.
There wasn't a tornado warning, nor was there a tornado. HOWEVER...several spotters consistently reported 90MPH winds with very large hail, so they decided to blow the sirens anyway. Supposedly it is almost unheard of for Omaha to sound their sirens for non-tornadic storms. It was for a good reason though, because downtown got hit hard. The Qwest Center has roof and window damage, and an art festival that was taking place downtown was totally wrecked, tents and stands destroyed everywhere. There are also reports of houses on the west side of Omaha that had their roofs torn off. Even though there officially wasn't a tornado (Although the amount of damage makes me wonder otherwise), it's still a good thing they sounded the sirens.
I do not know if this is the normal procedure for Omaha or not, but they sounded the sirens three separate times; 3-minute alert, 3-minute pause, 3-minute alert, etc. They sounded the first time while I was at the gas station, the second time while I was driving back to my friend's house, and a third time while at his house. At one point while driving I must have been very close to a siren, because I passed through the "sound beam" and it was very loud and sharp, even with the windows closed in my van. I couldn't see where it was though.
From my friend's house, I could hear at least one T-128, and I could also hear a Federal 2001. I recorded a brief siren ambience video, but it's not very good because it's spur-of-the-moment, very short and there's people talking in it (myself included). If I do post it, I'll probably trim out the parts that include the talking, which'll result in a video only about ten seconds long.