West Virginia Tornado Drill Frequently Asked Questions

The West Virginia Statewide Tornado Drill will be conducted Wednesday, March 20 at 11:00 AM EDT.  This will be a great opportunity to practice your tornado safety plan, whether you are at home, school, or work. 

Here are answers to a few questions that might be on your mind before, during, and after the drill. 

Q:     What should I do if this were a real tornado? 

A:    This ultimately depends on your location.  Our tornado safety webpage details what you should do depending on what type of structure you are in.

Q:     Will the Tornado Drill set off the Emergency Alert System? 

A:    Maybe, depending on your source.  Most NOAA Weather Radios will activate for the drill if they are in good working order and receiving a decent strength signal from the nearest transmitter.  EAS broadcast on local TV stations, radio stations and cable overrides may not occur due to the test coding included in the Tornado Warning test message.  

Q:     Will the Tornado Drill set off the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) on my mobile phone?

A:    No. WEA will disregard the message because it is identified as a TEST. 

Q:    Will the Tornado Drill set off the outdoor warning sirens? 

A:    Not all counties or municipalities have outdoor warning sirens.  Even for those that do have sirens, the decision to activate sirens (or not) is made by the Director of each County Emergency Management Agency. 

Q:     Why not do the drill concurrently with the monthly siren test?  

A:    Different counties test their sirens at different times. The Statewide Tornado Drill is a coordinated exercise.

Q:     What happens if there's bad weather on the day of the drill?  

A:    If there's real-world significant weather on the date of the drill, the drill will be cancelled.

Q:    You said the Tornado Drill wouldn’t set off the cell phones, so why did my phone alert me anyway?  

A:     If you are set up to receive alerts through a third-party vendor, some of them may still push the message to your cell phone. Others might not.  

Q:     Why didn’t my Weather Radio go off?

A:    There are several possibilities.  We’ll address these individually…  

• Is it set to the correct channel and programmed correctly?  Information on frequencies, coverage areas, and county codes can be found at www.weather.gov/rlx/nwr.

• Are you near a border between County Warning Areas, and listening to a transmitter that is run by a different office than the one that serves your county?  If this is the case, your county may not have been included in the neighboring office’s test Tornado Warning, but just the office that serves your county.  We do this with the drill so that each transmitter broadcasts the test message only once.  However, rest assured that when an actual Tornado Warning is issued for your county, all transmitters that cover your county will broadcast it. 

Q:    Why bother with a tornado drill if the kids aren’t in school? 

A:    The Statewide Tornado Drill is an opportunity to review and practice your tornado safety plan whether you’re at school, at home, or at work. Tornadoes can strike at any time of day, so it’s important to have a plan for any location where you spend a substantial amount of time. 

Q:     Will there be an evening tornado drill? 

A:    Unfortunately, no there won’t. Activating the EAS isn’t something that we can do multiple times for a test/drill. But today is a good time to discuss what your tornado plan is at home, or wherever you happen to be in the evenings.

Q:    How do I program my weather radio with a SAME code?

A:    Find your county code at www.weather.gov/rlx/nwr and follow the programming instructions with your specific radio.