Attack Sirens Sound in Winnebago County

OSHKOSH, WI- (WISS) – The skies were clear. The afternoon was quiet. Then, at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the outdoor warning sirens went off in Winnebago County. The sirens weren’t the normal tornado sirens one might expect to hear. They were “Attack” sirens.

Winnebago County Emergency Management Department said in a Facebook post that a problem with the siren caused the false activation. The siren vendor identified the problem and provided the county with a fix to make sure it didn’t happen again. 

“If you noticed a different sound today, the sirens activated using the “Attack” function,” said Winnebago County Emergency Management. “This is not a function of our system that we would use.”

Winnebago County uses the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System from FEMA that sends alerts directly to phones with specifics of what the threat might be. 

Winnebago County Executive Jon Doemel said in a comment on a post he made about the sirens that he too was surprised by the siren. 

“When the sirens went off, I waited for my phone to buzz with the specifics,” he wrote. “When that failed to occur, I knew it was a glitch and called my emergency management director to find out what happened. With the speed of a smart phone, there are times Facebook knows of an incident before dispatch does.