(8-1-23) From the Village of St Henry and the St Henry Police Department:

Update about the weather alerts on Saturday July 29th, 2023.

St. Henry emergency services have been investigating the weather event that happened on the early morning of Saturday July 29th when the tornado sirens were not activated to alert our community.

The National Weather Service issues warnings (tornado warnings are different than thunderstorm or other warnings as far as reporting) for only the area under the threat which is not usually an entire county. EMA director Mike Robbins was collaborating with the National Weather Services to determine the areas in threat. The tornado warning area was over Fort Recovery and heading East, Southeast to include Burkettsville and Marion township. Those sirens were activated through Central Dispatch as per their policies and procedures.

To compound the situation, the St. Henry repeater tower that is located at the fire department was struck by lightning affecting the fire and EMS paging system. This tower receives signals from Central dispatch to activate tornado sirens and to Dispatch Police, Fire and EMS personnel. The repeater system has been temporarily fixed until we can get a permanent fix.

Also, the outdoor tornado sirens are to alert people that are outdoors to seek shelter. Every household should have a notification device to inform them of the possibility for dangerous weather and every cellular phone has the ability to receive emergency alerts if you activate it on your phone.

We will continue to work with Central Dispatch on reviewing and updating any policies and procedures, but we must remember that everyone tries to do their best with every situation.