Every year, an average of around 20 to 30 tornadoes strike the Palmetto State, but despite the amount of twisters, the number of operational tornado sirens is actually decreasing.
According to emergency managers, most of the sirens weren’t originally installed with the goal of providing severe weather alerts but have since been refurbished for that purpose.
The sirens' original installations date back to the mid-20th century, when they were used to summon firefighters to fires, usually involving the state's extensive textile industry.
Despite their age, hundreds of the sirens still exist across the state, including in Spartanburg - the fifth-most populous county in South Carolina.
“They were installed here in the 1950s,” said Doug Bryson, director of the Spartanburg County Office of Emergency Services.
Instead of discarding the systems once first responders and fire departments deemed them nonessential, emergency officials repurposed them for severe weather.
But in several communities, including Spartanburg County, as the decades-old technology breaks down, the sirens are often not replaced if they require significant refurbishment.
Bryson said while the decision to remove a siren from service is difficult, it comes down to cost and practicality.
Repairing or replacing sirens is expensive, and with improvements in building standards and the availability of alternative severe weather alert methods, emergency managers in South Carolina and other states now view them as outdated.
“I could give everyone a weather radio for less than the cost of an entire new system,” said Bryson.
Other communities in South Carolina that still use sirens include Newberry, Anderson and Chester.
In addition to the municipalities, major institutions such as the University of South Carolina and Clemson University also use sirens for a variety of emergency incidents, including during tornadic activity.
According to the South Carolina Emergency Management Division, the state does not maintain a centralized list of communities with tornado sirens, and responsibility for maintaining and operating those systems falls entirely on local municipalities.
“There are multiple ways to receive emergency alerts about possible tornadoes,” SCEMD said in a statement. “The National Weather Service (NWS) sends out Wireless Emergency Alerts to individual mobile devices for Tornado Warnings. The NWS will also broadcast Tornado Warnings across the Emergency Alert System, which interrupts television and radio programming, including NOAA Weather Radio.”
SCEMD encourages all South Carolinians to sign up for CodeRED alerts, a free, subscription-based system that delivers emergency notifications via calls, texts and emails.
Not all sirens are devoted to weather disasters
While the use of tornado-specific sirens may be fading, South Carolina is home to hundreds of sirens devoted to nuclear emergencies.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the state is one of the nation’s leaders in nuclear energy production, generating more than half of its power needs each year.
As required by regulations, residents living near nuclear facilities must have multiple ways to receive emergency alerts, and as a result, sirens are positioned around the state’s major plants.
The major facilities include the Catawba Nuclear Station near the North Carolina border, the Oconee Nuclear Station outside of Clemson, the H. B. Robinson Nuclear Plant in Hartsville and the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station outside of Columbia.
Emergency managers say all but five counties - Beaufort, Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester and Georgetown - fall within either the 10- or 50-mile emergency zone radius.
Sirens around the nuclear sites are tested at least quarterly and can be heard within the 10-mile radius.
Emergency management officials gave no indications that sirens around nuclear sites will face the same fate as those devoted to tornadoes, as the systems can still provide alerts when other networks go offline.