Outdoor warning sirens sound across Amarillo area after two confirmed tornadoes

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - The National Weather Service confirmed two tornadoes touched down Tuesday night, triggering outdoor warning sirens across the area during a severe weather outbreak that produced 14 tornado warnings across the Texas Panhandle.

Outdoor warning sirens activate when a funnel is spotted or when there is high confidence of one forming, triggering a tornado watch or warning.

“These sirens are in fact activated for more than just tornadoes. However, in this case this week it was tornadoes,” said Max Dunlap, director of the Amarillo Office of Emergency Management. “So Tuesday night came multiple warnings throughout Potter, Randall County, the city of Canyon, city of Amarillo, all of which is our system cover. So as those storms and those warnings came through, these sirens were activated for each of one of these warnings.”

Sirens sound for five minutes once activated.

Due to repeated warnings throughout the night, city officials said some sirens sounded for up to 30 minutes.

“It lasts for a very long time and that night we actually activated it multiple times for every warning,” said Dunlap. “So our sirens were going off for a very prolonged period of time that night. It went off as the storms came through. Those systems followed it through, but we continued to sound as long as we could.”

Following the prolonged activation, siren technicians and the Office of Emergency Management inspected the system Wednesday.

“We are out going through following up some of the feedback some of our community members have given us,” said Dunlap. “We are going out checking those concerns and then double checking that one, is that siren good? If it does need parts, we have already begun the process to order those parts.”

City officials said the severe weather event is helping identify where sirens need repairs, where new sirens may be needed, and how municipal systems responded.

The City of Amarillo has informational videos about the system available on YouTube titled “Series on Sirens.”

Residents with concerns about hearing the sirens are encouraged to contact Amarillo OEM.