AURORA | The weather is one of Colorado’s longest running jokes that too often is far from funny.
Lethal flooding, tornadoes, blizzards, hail storms and wildfires have long been a part of life in the varied state, and more so recently than historically.
Not only do state and local governments worry about another Marshal Fire scenario, which without warning or expectation tore through suburban Boulder neighborhoods in December 2021, but they have since then moved toward paying closer attention to the key to survival: emergency notification.
Aurora is looking to update its emergency alert systems, telling residents to rely on their phone and media alerts over the city’s aging outdoor siren system.
“The sirens were never supposed to be folks’ primary warning system,” said City Manager Jason Batchelor. “It’s a very antiquated system, and so there are much better systems out there to give folks much more pinpointed notifications about what’s going on.”
Aurora has scrutinized its own systems and possible changes for years.
The city has four central systems that they use to notify residents about warning notifications like tornado warnings.: CodeRED, Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), social media and the siren system.
CodeRED is an opt-in reverse notification system that allows people to sign up through the city’s website for various types of alerts.
“We tag it as alert Aurora on the website,” said Matthew Chapman, battalion fire chief. “When you go to the website, every single page that you navigate to has emergency alerts at the top.”
The link on the website will allow residents to enter their specific addresses for emergencies closest to them. This could include weather alerts or other emergencies, such as an oil spill or gas leak. City staff do not send out weather alerts through this system. They are instead automated within the system and sent through the Weather Service.
So, a tornado that is close but not within the boundaries or heading toward the boundaries of the city would not automatically cause the sirens to come on.
IPAWS is an agreement between local, state, federal, tribal and other territorial agencies to send automatic alerts to personal phone devices, TV and radio stations, and internet-based services.
“The biggest one for this is an agreement we have with the federal government and state government to access the system,” Chapman said. “The biggest one would be the Wireless Emergency Alerts. So those are very similar to the Amber Alerts. It’s the same technology, the same process, where we’d be able to push out a message to our residents. That’s where we probably hit the most people in an alert and warning situation.”
The city also has access to the Emergency Alert System and TV and radio, where the alerts interrupt with the message. The city also offers other internet-based services and roadside signs.
Emergency officials realize, however, that the days of most of the community sitting in front of a television or listening to the radio simultaneously are long, long gone. So, too, are most eyes fixed on Facebook and X, formerly Twitter.
Social media is another platform the city uses to push our emergency information to residents.
PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado
“If we hit all of these social media sites between city, comms, police and fire, PIOs, we have actually probably more followers on the social media sites than we do and CodeRED by quite a bit, and these are also good for advisory notices,” Chapman said.
The siren system is the least updated, the least used, and will cost the most to update.
“We’re dealing with a kind of a system that’s end of life for several different reasons in several different areas,” Chapman said. “This has been in place since at least the early 80s.”
The city has 58 sirens throughout the city, and it has expanded the sirens to keep up with growth, but some areas are not fully covered.
It’s an all-hazard system, but it is primarily used for tornado warnings.
Cities along the Front Range that have stopped using sirens as an emergency alert warning system include Brighton and Wheatridge, while Denver, Boulder and Englewood do operate a siren system.
Aurora’s siren system is an “all or nothing,” meaning that if they use the system, all sirens will go off even if there is no emergency in certain regions of the city.
Another issue the city faces is the lag in time between receiving the National Weather Service’s notification and the time it takes to activate the system. Since it is not automated, the city has continued to promote the system as a secondary notification, rather than recommending it as a primary notification system.
The system has only been used five times since 2019.
“We have a system that is not completely what I would say, reliable in its current state, without a lot of repair and some maintenance on it,” Chapman said.
In addition, Councilmember Françoise Bergan reminded people in the meeting that CodeRed alerts do not go off if their phone is on silent mode.
Public keen on awareness
But coordination between weather or other disaster alerts, especially for flash floods, and public notification have regularly been in the news over the past few years, and especially this week with the fatal floods near Hunt, Texas and Camp Mystic in Texas Hill Country.
Questions linger about the level of coordination and communication between NWS and local Texas officials on the night of the disaster on July 4 according to reporting by the Associated Press. The Trump administration has cut hundreds of jobs at NWS, with staffing down by at least 20% at nearly half of the 122 NWS field offices nationally and at least a half dozen no longer staffed 24 hours a day. Hundreds more experienced forecasters and senior managers were encouraged to retire early.
The White House also has proposed slashing its parent agency’s budget by 27% and eliminating federal research centers focused on studying the world’s weather, climate and oceans.
The website for the NWS office for Austin/San Antonio, which covers the region that includes hard-hit Kerr County, shows six of 27 positions are listed as vacant. The vacancies include a key manager responsible for issuing warnings and coordinating with local emergency management officials. An online resume for the employee who last held the job showed he left in April after more than 17 years, shortly after mass emails sent to employees urging them to retire early or face potential layoffs.
Democrats on Monday pressed the Trump administration for details about the cuts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded that the administration conduct an inquiry into whether staffing shortages contributed to “the catastrophic loss of life” in Texas.
President Donald Trump said the job eliminations did not hamper any weather forecasting.
Despite technology leaps, notification can lag
Regardless of identifying critical threats, how a community spreads the word to flee or hunker down is critical and a local challenge, experts say.
City officials say the certainty for Aurora is that it will cost money.
Repairs and updates are expected to cost the city more than $2 million. The city will need at least eight new sirens are currently needed at a cost of $70,000 each, 36 Sirens need a front panel upgrade at a cost of $800,000, all sirens more than 20 years old are recommended to have new speakers and electronic cabinets at a cost of $1,650,000 and the city need new software to run the system.
“There are some other applications and services out there that provide better notification,” Batchelor said. “So yes, we’re looking at those systems that would be part of our plan to wind down the system, if you would, is making sure that we’re actually providing better, more targeted notifications for folks with instructions on what they can expect and what they can do to keep safe.”
I noticed that the neighborhood fireworks were out of hand this year. I’m surprised there is no effective ban or enforcement within the Aurora area. I lived in a Houston suburb that regularly quashed fireworks displays. That area saw 52″ of rain in an average year. My neighbors were shut down at least three times, which led to more muted displays. Here, we are dry as a bone, but regularly flirt with a fire disaster. In my daughter’s neighborhood this year a new neighbor lit aerial fireworks that did not head upwards. It hit the street with people scrambling to avoid calamity – still no police presence!
Although this article isn’t about July 4th neighborhood fireworks, I’ll just reply to Kane’s comments. Lighten up, Kane. I’ve found a neighborhood that puts on a great display every year and love it. No traffic, laughing children, many fire extinguishers and strong neighbor camaraderie. So Kane here is an idea for you on the 4th weekends.
Go visit your Texas friends and certainly don’t go visit your daughter. You might get burned!
As far as what this article is about, I think Jason B has realized it already. City sirens are a 20th Century relic.
Love our fireworks. We keep both front and backyard gardehoses charged and laid out for immediate use.
We drop faulty fireworks and used sparkler wires in a full bucket of water.
Though I own a Federal Signal 2t22A siren from Lowry Air Force Base, outdor sirens are obsolete. They should be replaced by cell phone notifications and landline telephone calls.
Aurora has changed in so many ways and so has our weather. Donald Trumps elimination of employees is part of the disaster that is going on in and around the US. He says that elimination of staff did not hamper any weather forecasting just like he said there is no such thing as climate change. If he is not going to protect his American people then we have to and that starts with the cities and political staff even if they agree with him.
Could it be Susan that The Donald believes that weather forecasting is not for the government to provide but should be privatized?
After reading this and all this climate safety security the city is concerned about and that looming risk of mother nature. But the ticket to solve whatever nature throws at us is more money and technology. ” Batchelor said. “So yes, we’re looking at those systems that would be part of our plan to wind down the system, if you would, is making sure that we’re actually providing better, more targeted notifications for folks with instructions on what they can expect and what they can do to keep safe.” That’s so beautiful and so appropo after watching this week ends July 4th endless blasting and picking up burned out missiles rained in from several streets away landing in your back yard. The city on the other hand, can’t figure out how to see or hear much-less track down these high-power mortar launch platforms that were all over the place in city streets that would go on for hours. Oh-No – that’s way too hard to do and not much benefit. The public will get over it in a couple days, so who cares. But some “targeted notifications” of a tornado you might experience someday in your life… no worries we take that stuff serious.