KIOWA, Okla. — While an April 24 tornado ripped through Kiowa, the tornado sirens failed to sound.
“It got very very dark, and the air was hard to breathe, and it was downright scary. It was too close. This is the very closest I’ve ever been to a tornado,” Kiowa neighbor, Mary Cearly said, describing the storm.
Cearly heard that infamous freight train sound. She heard trees snapping. Mobile homes flipping over. Debris flying through the area. She did not hear the tornado sirens, because they did not sound.
“I found out why. I asked,” Cearly said.
2 News Oklahoma asked local leaders too.
“The tornado really took them out,” Mayor Danny Drake said, “When we went to do it, it wouldn’t turn on.”
Drake blames it on a technical issue, caused by some unfortunate irony. He says the storms damaged some of the hardware the sirens rely on to work. Drake said officials usually sound the sirens remotely. The technology making that possible failed, forcing a police officer to take matters into his own hands.
“The minute that officer got in there to do it, manually, the minute he went in there to pull the handle, that tornado hit. When it did, it sucked the doors out, and he hid under the table. But it still didn’t work,” Drake said.
2 News Oklahoma spoke with police chief Jess Wilson.
“It’s just one of them things you don’t expect, that, the sirens in town are in the exact path of what the tornado’s gonna be,” Wilson said.
Wilson and Drake agreed to a plan.
“We have a company that’ll be here [April 28]. They’re gonna re-work this siren and the Pittsburg County [Emergency] Management will be setting it on from this point on,” Drake said.
While Kiowa neighbors recover from the damage, Drake called the help overwhelming.
“I had some companies call today, wanting to bring water and such but I said, man, we got more now, than we know what to do with. That’s kind of bad to say, but it’s true. That’s how people work,” Drake said.
Drake says the tornado did not kill or seriously injure anyone.
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