Last Updated on April 21, 2024 by Cass County Emergency Management Agency
ABOVE: Work is completed on the siren at Lewis Cass High School during the 2023 maintenance project.
April 24-27, 2024 Cass County residents may hear periodic activations of outdoor warning sirens. Cass County will be working with a maintenance vendor to complete annual preventative maintenance on outdoor warning sirens.
During the maintenance period, updates will be posted to the Cass County Emergency Management Agency – Indiana Facebook page indicating what part of the county vendors are working in and verifying when testing in a given area is completed.
Cass County has 28 outdoor warning sirens. Warning sirens are intended to provide outdoor warning and are not meant to be heard indoors. Hearing a siren is a signal to get indoors and seek additional information. If a siren stops, it does not necessarily mean the threat has ended. Sources where additional information may be obtained from include area media, the emergency management agency social media page, or sources such as the National Weather Service.
In Cass County, siren activation triggers are specified in a policy approved jointly by the Board of Commissioners and the Mayor of Logansport. Activation triggers include issuance of a tornado warning by the National Weather Service, a confirmed tornado on the ground as verified by a trained weather spotter or public safety personnel, or confirmed information from a neighboring county emergency management agency indicating a tornado is on the ground and on track to impact Cass County.
The Emergency Management Agency encourages all citizens to have multiple ways to receive warning information. Sirens can fail, you may live in an area where you are unlikely to hear a siren, or the trigger for siren activation may simply not be met. Turning on phone alerts, listening to area radio stations when severe weather is in the area, acquiring a Weather Alert Radio, and following social media pages such as Cass County EMA or the National Weather Service Northern Indiana are additional ways updates can be received.
The Emergency Management Agency extends its gratitude to the Cass County Council for including additional funding for this project in the 2024 agency budget. Over the years maintenance costs have been escalating, due in part to non-specification parts installed by past vendors. This has led to high battery failure rates and other issues. By addressing those problems this year, we are hopeful long term costs will be reduced and system reliability will be improved.
SOURCE: News release from Cass County Emergency Management Agency