By Andrew de Souza

Tornado Hunter: better warning system needed

Jul 20, 2011 | 6:52 AM

Despite an official warning from Environment Canada that a severe storm was about to hit the Waskesiu town site, people were still going about their business eating dinner and enjoying the lake.

People found themselves scrambling for shelter and hoping for safety when the fist-sized hail started falling.

Saskatchewan tornado hunter Greg Johnson said that it’s not the people’s fault that they were caught off guard — it’s the system that doesn’t provide adequate warning of such severe events.

“People are out on a beach, sitting in their cabin, maybe outside and a very severe storm came right over the hill and took a direct hit on the resort community of Waskesiu,” he said.

“Had there been a warning or siren in place, people would have had adequate warning.

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“We’re really fortunate that tornado warning storm didn’t produce a tornado in that resort community because those people had no warning and it could have been a disaster.”

According to Gregg Walters from Environment Canada, the organization lets people know through their website, on weather radios, telephone hotlines and through the media.

“People that were paying attention the media or had their weather radio on or looking on our website would have been able to see that information,” he said.

For Johnson however, that passive approach isn’t good enough.

He said the system needs to be more like in the U.S. where the National Weather Service has authority to be more forceful and proactive with severe weather warnings.

“They push that information by breaking into programming (on TV and radio) and broadcasting that warning,” he said. Johnson said that in Canada, residents are limited to hearing news broadcast or weather radio as opposed to being directly informed.

He said implementing such a system would be relatively inexpensive but that there simply isn’t the political or public will.

“Canadians are complacent about severe weather everyone says that’s never happened in our community or it’s been a long time since something like that has happened,” he said.

“What’s really sad is that for people to take this seriously, I think there’s going to have to be a real disaster.”

Jonhson said that until a more proactive system is adopted there are a few things you can do to stay safe.

You can check Environment Canada’s website for warnings from around the country. As well, you can follow him on Twitter @CanadoGreg. There is currently a network of meteorologists who post storm warnings on Twitter using the hashtag #SKStorm.

Information is available on the paNOW homepage or on our Twitter feed @PrinceAlbertNow.

Weather information is available offline over weather radio services, which can be accessed by purchasing a weather radio at various electronics stores.

adesouza@panow.com