Here in tornado country we have sirens that are used to warn of tornados. They're controlled by the county. They test them every Wednesday afternoon. You're supposed to tune in to news to find out what's going on. They're just an alert to tell you something (usually a tornado) is going on. They also were to be used in case of atomic attack.

If you hear the siren you're supposed to seek shelter and then tune in to find out what's going on. This is an effective way for dealing with any emergency, even outside of tornados.

In the Netherlands, emergency sirens are tested at Noon on the first monday of every month for 1 minute. If you hear a siren at any other time, it's serious and you seek out more information from sources relevant to your area.

> Where do the klaxons blare from?

Everywhere in a city, and more scattered the farther you go out.

If you ever lived in the Midwest, it's the same things that do the monthly-or-whatever tornado alert tests (and real tornado alerts).

> And who decides to blare the klaxons?

Depends on the situation. But it's not nationally controlled, so it depends on where you live. City or county or whatever

> Depends on the situation. But it's not nationally controlled, so it depends on where you live. City or county or whatever

It's definitely city-level, in at least some places. I know because I was visiting a friend and heard the sirens go off. I assumed it was a tornado warning (i.e. actually serious), but it turns out that city (and only that city in the area) is dumb and blare the sirens for severe thunderstorm warnings, basically crying wolf every time.

It might just be a liability issue... basically, by warning people to stay inside during a declared natural weather crisis, they won't have to pay when people ignoring that go outside and get injured by a falling tree or whatever.

> It might just be a liability issue... basically, by warning people to stay inside during a declared natural weather crisis, they won't have to pay when people ignoring that go outside and get injured by a falling tree or whatever.

Even in America, I can't imagine someone suing the city because they got injured during a storm, let alone winning their case and making the city pay.

The real story was someone got killed by lighting, and the city decided to "do something" so that never happened again. However, IMHO, they're going to shoot themselves in the foot because their citizens are going to be less papered for a tornado, which could kill many more people.

> Even in America, I can't imagine someone suing the city because they got injured during a storm, let alone winning their case and making the city pay.

In Germany, you absolutely can. It's called "Verkehrssicherungspflicht". Given how Americans can get sued by a random child wandering onto their property and injuring themselves on a trampoline or a swimming pool, even if the area is fenced off, I assumed that liability for natural disasters would be just as insane.

I’ve never lived in a tornado area, but my understanding is they do have these as a tornado warning device in those areas.

I suspect this depends on the country.

Here it's mostly fire departments and town halls that have the sirens, and they are controlled by the town hall, département (one level above) and the interior ministry, so each of these level can decide to blare the sirens it is responsible for.

It basically never happens except in real bad circumstances.

Actually I said "here" but I don't live in France most of the time, and here in Belgium it's only based on the phone network now, no sirens anymore.