MEDINA COUNTY--The emergency siren did not go off in the City of Natalia on Monday night, despite severe weather.
"We have one central point of contact, and that is at the Sheriff's office, they have the monitors, they have the computer that will activate the sirens within Medina County, " said the Mayor for the City of Natalia, Ruby Vera.
Mayor Vera told News 4 WOAI, the city always waits for a call from the Sheriff's department to activate the siren.
"No call ever came, there was never a call, " Vera went on to say.
Due to Monday's debacle Mayor Vera said she's no longer going to wait for a call from the Sheriff's Department to sound the city siren. ""Now I will be the one that's going to tell them to hit the button if I believe we are in any kind of danger, " added Vera.
The City of Natalia escaped the tornado's path, but destruction stretched outside the city limits. Mayor Vera went on to say people living in the area of the destruction would not have been able to hear the City of Natalia's siren if it did go off.
Medina County Sheriff Randy Brown told News 4 WOAI, even though the Sheriff's Office has a central hub to activate the alarms it doesn't mean a city can't set off its own siren. "They may be seeing something that we're not aware of, they have the capability of setting of the alarms in their city, " replied Sheriff Brown.
Sheriff Brown said his office did in fact set of the sirens Monday night for both Natalia and Devine. "I know those two were set off, and I don't believe the one in Devine went off either, " added Sheriff Brown.
A company has been contacted by Medina County to look into the siren system, to make sure it's running properly, " And hopefully we can figure out why the system didn't go through, " Sheriff Brown went on to say.
