How do you respond to a tornado siren?

We hear the sirens once a month at noon in most cities doing their regular tests. Most people I know call it a tornado alarm or a tornado siren.

But in Dakota County, it's not used strictly for tornadoes. It's also used for thunderstorms.

The Star Tribune was looking for people to interview about alarms that went off this weekend in Dakota County. I talked to a reporter who told me that alarms in our county are used for any severe thunderstorm as well as tornadoes.

We also happen to be the only county in the Twin Cities metro (maybe the state?) that uses our sirens this way.

This seems way too confusing since it renders the alarm virtually worthless to respond to in many cases. Dakota County's feeling is that we should all check the TV or the internet for weather updates to see what to do.

Isn't the siren supposed to be telling us what to do rather than a TV or phone? The siren should mean, "Run! Find cover now!" It doesn't, which does a disservice to anyone without immediate access to a TV or the internet.

You can read their article here.

Here are the last few paragraphs:

Joey White heard the sirens at his Burnsville home Saturday night. He pulled up the radar on his cell phone, and seeing no impending danger, wondered why the siren sounded.

"It seemed a little odd to me," he said. "The expectation with most communities is that the siren means tornado."

Yet White's reaction is exactly what [Dakota County emergency preparedness coordinator Dave] Gisch and other emergency officials hope for -- a pause, a search for more information, and if conditions warrant it, a move toward emergency shelter.

"We have citizens that say [we're] crying wolf," Gisch said. "Our response is, we would rather warn you that there's a storm warning and it's up to you to decide what you want to do."

What do you think?