On June 20, the city announced that more than half of the approximately sixty sirens set up by the city forty years ago are old and often broken, and that fixing them will cost about $3 million. Days later at an Aurora City Council study session, the city's Office of Emergency Management director, Matt Chapman, recommended retiring the siren system entirely.
Chapman had previously said that Aurora is "bandaging the city’s siren system year after year, and now the bandages are running out.”
"With our risk threat and our notification, we have better tools to notify and provide direction to our citizens," he tells Westword.
But instead of undergoing an overhaul, Chapman would prefer people rely on their radios, TVs and phones for disaster and emergency weather alerts. The city is also urging residents to sign up for CodeRED, a local opt-in emergency alert system.
"With our risk threat and our notification, we have better tools to notify and provide direction to our citizens," he tells Westword.
But instead of undergoing an overhaul, Chapman would prefer people rely on their radios, TVs and phones for disaster and emergency weather alerts. The city is also urging residents to sign up for CodeRED, a local opt-in emergency alert system.
Aurora's siren system woes sound uncomfortably similar to details from tragic stories about preventable deaths in deadly flooding in Texas this month. According to the Associated Press, Texas state and local agencies knew for a decade that Kerr County — outside of San Antonio — needed $1 million to improve its emergency warning system, including around Camp Mystic, where dozens of children died from flash floods over the July 4th weekend.
"We're always paying attention to what's going on in the country and what rises to the level of emergency management," Chapman says about the Texas floods. "It absolutely gets our attention and causes us to go to work and make sure we're providing the best public safety service we can."
Chapman assures Aurora residents that they're safe from flash floods and other disasters, even if the city decides to take down its public alert system, adding that sirens "were never supposed to be the primary warning system," nor was it ever used for flooding.
In 2013, floods swept through Colorado's Front Range, damaging parts of Aurora. Public parks filled like swimming pools, and some residents (including this author) took ill-advised plunges while others took home displaced frogs and snails.
There were nine reported deaths in Colorado from the 2013 floods, but none in Aurora, where home and property damage were the main extent of the harm, according to Chapman. Although it was "the most significant flood in Aurora in many years," the sirens weren't used in 2013, either, he says.
"We didn't use sirens for that, because in our case it wasn't the most appropriate use of the system," Chapman says. "We faced flooding issues much different than what they faced in Texas."
The Denver area has dealt with catastrophic flooding before. In 1965, the South Platte River flood took 21 lives and caused damage amounting to $543 million ($4 billion when adjusted for inflation today). The 1965 flood came about 100 years after Denver's first recorded big flood, which killed eight and destroyed buildings.
Aurora's sirens were mostly set up in the 1980s as "all-hazard" sirens, meaning they were meant to warn people about any possible disaster, according to Chapman. But whenever Aurora used those sirens in the following decades, "99.9 percent of the time it was associated with tornadoes warnings," he notes. Now the sirens are hardly used, having only gone off five times since 2019.
During the June 23 council hearing, Councilwoman Francoise Bergan, who represents southeast Aurora, expressed worry over depending on phones and TVs for emergency alerts.
"I had a lot of complaints in my ward primarily because the sirens didn't go off [during tornadoes in May]," she said. "I just want to assure the public that we're not just saying, 'sign up for CodeRED,' and we're going to do away with sirens."
"I had a lot of complaints in my ward primarily because the sirens didn't go off [during tornadoes in May]," she said. "I just want to assure the public that we're not just saying, 'sign up for CodeRED,' and we're going to do away with sirens."
Chapman says that the way sirens are used "differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction." Sometimes counties handle the siren system — Aurora spans three different counties — and sometimes it's the city government; some sirens are meant to signal an evacuation while others tell people to shelter in place.
A handful of Colorado jurisdictions never installed sirens or already retired them, including Fort Collins, Wheat Ridge, Longmont, Brighton, Windsor and Elbert County, according to the City of Aurora.
In Texas, the town of Comfort used sirens to evacuate more than 2,000 people a few hours before flooding intensified, which raised questions about whether sirens in Kerr County, located upstream from Comfort, could have evacuated people and saved more lives.
A handful of Colorado jurisdictions never installed sirens or already retired them, including Fort Collins, Wheat Ridge, Longmont, Brighton, Windsor and Elbert County, according to the City of Aurora.
In Texas, the town of Comfort used sirens to evacuate more than 2,000 people a few hours before flooding intensified, which raised questions about whether sirens in Kerr County, located upstream from Comfort, could have evacuated people and saved more lives.
But Aurora's sirens aren't used for evacuation, Chapman stresses, who says sirens are meant to signal to residents to get inside and find more information on incoming storms.
"Our instruction, whenever we were out promoting the sirens or educating the public on sirens, was it's to get your attention while you're outside, it's to go seek shelter and then have you find a source of information to provide further direction," Chapman explains. "It's to get your attention. It's not going to deliver any more instruction or information."
"Our instruction, whenever we were out promoting the sirens or educating the public on sirens, was it's to get your attention while you're outside, it's to go seek shelter and then have you find a source of information to provide further direction," Chapman explains. "It's to get your attention. It's not going to deliver any more instruction or information."
The floods in Texas reminded the public that tge NWS and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have suffered staffing cuts under President Donald Trump, but Chapman says that Aurora hasn't seen the impacts of those cuts to its warning systems yet.
"I don't think we've seen any reduction in services at this point," he says. "I can't speak for other jurisdictions, but as far as Aurora goes, I would say right now there's been no reduction that we've seen from an emergency management standpoint."
The next step for the Aurora Emergency Management Office is to look at more alternatives to siren systems. According to Bergan, she's trying to enlist retired Denver TV meteorologist Mike Nelson to help them.
"We're evaluating what's out there," Chapman says. "The existing system wasn't really providing a reliable source for information right now, so we knew we had better tools. Now, we're just evaluating what's a better system and what's out there, what's available."
