Did your phone go off during the Ann Arbor tornado warning? Should it have?
The siren located at the Freedom Township Compressor Station can be used to alert Freedom Township residents to all types of emergency situations. Mirror file photo.
by Sara Swanson
In the early hours of Tuesday, April 14, an EF-1 tornado touched down in Ann Arbor. Manchester area residents who live near our two outdoor emergency sirens, heard the sirens go off. Most Manchester area residents cell phones remained silent but a few residents received emergency phone alerts. Should you be concerned if you didn't receive an emergency alert? No!
Benjamin C. Pinette, the Emergency Operations Manager for the Washtenaw County Office of the Sheriff explained, “The Tornado Warning that was issued by the National Weather Service did NOT include the Manchester area, however we did activate the outdoor warning sirens countywide because a portion of the southwest sector of the county WAS included in the warning. So while Manchester residents may have heard the siren, they were not in the warned area and thus their phones did not activate for that emergency alert.”
What about the Manchester area residents who woke up to their phones going off? There are multiple factors used to determine cell phone locations including wifi router IP addresses, GPS coordinates, and proximity to specific cell phone towers, and occasionally these can lead to a phone believing it is somewhere it is not. We will probably never know why a cell phone mistakenly went off that night and there may be different reasons behind each instance!
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