By David Fleet

Editor

Atlas Twp. — On March 2, two Atlas Township emergency sirens failed during a recent tornado touchdown and during the first Genesee County-wide test of the year a few days later.
“Individuals were at each of the township’s five locations for the first test of the season,” said Shirley Kautman-Jones, township supervisor. “I had received calls from residents regarding the Ridge Road at Lakeshore Drive location and Irish near Jordan roads location not being audible during the storm last week.”
At approximately 1:20 a.m. Feb. 28 a tornado touched down in Grand Blanc in the area of Dort Highway and Reid Road, in Grand Blanc Township. According to the National Weather Service, the tornado was an EF-2 with estimated peak wind at 115 mph and a width of 450 yards covered about six miles proceeding east toward Atlas Township.
Allendale based-West Shore Services made repairs to the two non functional township sirens last week.
“Ridge Road made a short 15 second bleep and that was it,” said Kautman-Jones. “The siren did rotate for the three minute period. Irish Road remained silent during the full test period but it did rotate.”
“Genesee County 911 and Genesee County Emergency Management were made aware that these two locations are not sounding,” she added.
Christopher R. Metropoulos, Genesee County Sheriff Emergency manager responded and on April 6, during the next monthly siren test, requested the area fire chiefs to post individuals at each of their weather sirens for the duration of the test.
“Our AuxComm team will be coordinating with Genesee County 9-1-1 to obtain a special events channel to allow us to check each of our sirens,” said Metropoulos.  “With our recent weather emergency, I believe it is imperative we make sure our systems are functioning correctly.  With over 100 sirens in our county, this may take some effort, but I believe it will be well worth it, especially after it was discovered, we have (the) two sirens in the southern part of the county that did not activate after the last test.”
Atlas Township utilizes five emergency sirens including the original siren on Hegel Road near the Goodrich Country Club which covers the village, golf course and the Goodrich schools campuses. The second siren was installed in 2014 and is located near Ridge Road and Lakeshore Drive. A grant from the Genesee County Emergency Management and Homeland Security of $19,000 was awarded in 2015 to the township and used to purchase a third tornado siren located near Irish and Jordan roads on the west side.
Then in 2017 an emergency siren was installed in the right-of-way at the intersection of Perry and State roads followed by a fifth at the intersection of Baldwin and Gale roads.