ThorntonWeather.com has been featured on the City of Thornton’s cable access channel show Thornton 360. The interview which was conducted in June 2009 features the site’s chief amateur meteorologist Tony Hake discussing the features of ThorntonWeather.com, his interest in the weather and more.
Be sure to check out the video below and let us know what you think. You can also watch it on channel 8 throughout the month of September if you have Comcast cable TV.
ThorntonWeather.com would like to thank the City of Thornton’s Communications Department for their work. Oftentimes we forget how many people it takes to make a city of over 100,000 residents run as well as Thornton does and the city’s employees continually perform above and beyond!
On June 3, 1981 a tornado struck Thornton in what is the worst twister to have struck the Denver metro area. Despite this, Thornton does not have any sort of emergency alert system to warn citizens of tornadoes or other civil disasters. Image courtesy the City of Thornton archives.
As we have discussed before, the City of Thornton is lacking any type of system to alert citizens of severe weather like we have seen recently. In the last week, parts of Thornton have been under Tornado Warnings as funnel clouds circled in the sky and citizens are understandably concerned.
We at ThorntonWeather.com continually remind people that the Denver metro area is at the far western edge of Tornado Alley and funnel clouds, tornadoes, hail and other types of severe weather are not unusual at all. It was 28 years ago last Wednesday in fact that the costliest tornado to ever hit the Denver metro area struck Thornton. Accounts vary but 53 people were injured, at least 25 homes were destroyed and hundreds more damaged.
The danger is real – tornadoes can and do strike in the Thornton area. In some ways it is surprising that the city did not implement some sort of system in the wake of the tornado in 1981. Many municipalities in the metro area do have warning sirens including Denver, Aurora, Englewood, Commerce City and Brighton.
Thornton Mayor Erik Hansen has told ThorntonWeather.com that the city will look at ways to inform citizens when severe weather is imminent. This may take the form of utilizing the reverse 911 system or as we suggested to him, a possible new text alert system that would deliver alerts to citizen’s mobile phones. It is our firm belief that some sort of system to be used not only for severe weather but for other civil disasters is a wise and prudent investment for the city to take.
The Denver area is at the western edge of Tornado Alley and as we have seen historically and in recent days, the danger is real. Click image for larger view. Image courtesy NOAA.
This week the city posted some tornado safety tips on its website that are worth reviewing. You may also wish to review our Severe Weather 101 series which provides more in depth information on the entire array of spring and summer severe weather (links below).
We will continue our conversations with the city about how they can improve communication with Thornton residents about severe weather and keep you updated as appropriate. If you are so inclined, contact your city council representatives and let them know you want to see Thornton implement an emergency alert system.
For those that may not have noticed it in the most recent issue of Inside Thornton, the city has launched a new service called Thornton Connected. This new website and system allows area residents access to all sorts of new information from the city. First is a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section of the website that covers the entire breadth of city services. That same information is also available by phone. Second is an email subscription service that allows area residents to receive periodic emails from the city on a range of topics from just about every city department.
We have subscribed to many of the email newsletters and have them to be very informative. The city is also doing a great job of ensuring the number of messages isn’t overwhelming and is only sending out the important stuff. We commend the City of Thornton on this new service for residents!
At the current time the system is only for non-emergency messages. We do wish and hope the city will consider expanding the system to include emergency messages such as tornado warnings, Amber Alerts and other emergency alerts. The city does not have an emergency siren system or any other way to disseminate emergency information to residents and we believe this would be a valuable and potentially life saving service. A number of municipalities across the country and in Colorado have implemented such systems. We are going to talk to the city about this and will update you when we learn more about their plans.
ThorntonWeather.com has been featured on the City of Thornton’s cable access channel show Thornton 360. The interview which was conducted in June 2009 features the site’s chief amateur meteorologist Tony Hake discussing the features of ThorntonWeather.com, his interest in the weather and more.
