GAYLORD — As part of Severe Weather Awareness Month, many Northern Michigan counties participated in a voluntary statewide test of their emergency alert systems on Wednesday.
Otsego County chose not to participate. After an EF 3 tornado touched down in Otsego County in 2022, killing two people and damaging homes and businesses, Otsego County emergency manager Jon Deming said he doesn’t want to trigger the community with a false alarm.
“After the devastating tornado that tore through Gaylord in May 2022, we felt the wound was too fresh to send out a push alert to the general public. The code red will only be issues when a real weather emergency is imminent,” said Deming.
Although they didn’t send out a trial alert, Deming still said it’s important to know your procedures and resources ahead of time.
“In a mass casualty event which we had during the tornado, it took all our resources plus our neighboring resources to come in and assist us, and it took multiple hospitals to take care of these people,” said Deming.
But, he added, you can expect alarms in the event of a real natural disaster. “We don’t want to use it/abuse it with Code Red...when NOAA sticks out an alarm, we tie onto it with Code Red so that there are really live alarms coming through to you.”
