Weather in the West can be unpredictable and while we all have access to phones and computers in this day and age sometimes in order to grab folks attention old school is the way to go.
David Tucker, Vice President of Tucker Oil Company explained “I know about our phones and our computers and videos and television everything we watch, sometimes they’re on so much we really quit paying attention. That siren, that warning is something that’s not just around us all the time and I would respond to it and take cover.”
It’s because of people like David Tucker that the City of Slaton keeps it’s old technology in good shape.
Trevor Barnes, Chief of Police for the City of Slaton, told us “Right now we have quite a few sirens so we’re doing our best to make sure that they function and that we have as much geographical area covered as we can.”
Their sirens are tested annually to make sure that everyone is alerted when a storms strikes.
Barnes said, “We try to test them about every 6 months if we can. Especially right now, it’s a bad time of year for tornadoes, commonly it’s understood that it’s a bad time, so we’re just going to make sure they’re functioning to protect our citizens.”
With recent severe weather Barnes hopes the sirens are taken seriously, “We’ve seen recently in Dimmit Texas how horrendous it was and what it can do. I believe people are cognitive of it, they understand how detrimental it can be and what we need to do as a community to help warn them as early as possible.”
Tucker expressed that he does indeed take them seriously, “We’re blessed in West Texas it’s flat and in the daytime you can see that storm that’s in New Mexico already but in the night time you don’t have that opportunity so yeah I think they’re important. “
