MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. — We trust emergency alerts to warn us in times of crisis, but on Oct. 9, our WPTV investigation found thousands who relied on those alerts to warn of impending tornadoes received them too late.
This comes after our earlier investigation found that dozens down in Wellington never got an alert at all.
WATCH BELOW: WPTV investigation reveals possible flaws in tornado alert system
WPTV investigative reporter Kate Hussey started digging through dozens of weather reports and alert records to expose what could be a severe flaw in our system.
One that affected Diana Dotson.
"Oh, gosh. Phew. October 9 was devastating to me," said Dotson.
Dotson spoke to WPTV as she sat among the remnants of her life, now as broken as the beams that once held up her home.
"It's not good, but it looks better than it did that day," said Dotson.
Dotson's Stuart neighborhood was hit by at least two tornadoes on Oct. 9, the second being an EF-2, which crumbled her home of 40 years and took out her bedroom right before she was about to nap in it.
"I never did make it to lay down, and thank God I didn't because if I had, I know I wouldn't be here," said Dotson.
Dotson credits God for her narrow escape.
Others may call it luck.
One thing is for sure: Dotson said it wasn’t an emergency alert that saved her.
"I didn’t hear no warning signs or nothing," said Dotson.
She's one of several across our area that told us they had an issue with the alert system, so we started digging to find out why.
WPTV Investigates
Didn't get an emergency alert on Oct. 9? This might be why
In our previous investigation, we learned when the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning, FEMA's Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS) takes that warning and creates a Weather Emergency Alert (WEA), then sends it to cell phone tower.
If you have emergency alerts turned on, it then pings your phone.
We went to Warn.PBS.org, a government-funded website that tracks when each emergency alert is sent. We then read through dozens of NWS surveys to compare the time each tornado touched down to the time each warning was issued — and found a problem.
According to NWS surveys, a tornado that spawned in Stuart touched down at 4:03 p.m.
However, the warning, and the accompanying emergency alert, weren't issued until 4:07 p.m., four minutes after the tornado was already on the ground and churning through New Monrovia Park — Dotson's neighborhood.
WATCH: Timeline of emergency alerts in Stuart on Oct. 9
Hussey addressed this with Will Ulrich, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Melbourne.
Records show his office issued an earlier warning at 3:21 p.m., approximately 40 minutes before the tornado touched down, but that warning did not encompass the area of Martin County that was hit.
In our earlier investigation, former FEMA Director Craig Fugate, and meteorologist in charge of NWS Miami, Robert Molleda, told us only those inside the National Weather Service's polygon of warning get the emergency alerts on their phones, meaning none of the people in Dotson's neighborhood would have gotten that earlier alert.
"Would that have been prevented had there been a broader scope of area warned?" Hussey asked Ulrich.
"Sure, so the alert messaging system from Martin County will still go off," replied Ulrich.
He referred to AlertMartin, the county’s free, voluntary service that allows various agencies to send safety messages via phone, text or email. However, those who didn’t sign up wouldn’t have gotten any alerts, and the earliest tornado alert Hussey received on her phone from the county Oct. 9 was time-stamped at 4:10 p.m., seven minutes after the tornado was on the ground.
Still though, Ulrich expressed concerns about over-warning by expanding the breadth of the warning polygon to encompass more people.
"We’ve grappled with this before. How much lead time is too much lead time?" said Ulrich. "Sometimes we’ve seen this in the research — too much lead time may cause complacency."
Fugate agreed that complacency has been an issued in the past, but still questioned: "How do we get a warning to people with the least amount of confusion? Is there a better practice when we’re getting multiple touchdowns?" he asked.
Fugate further highlighted the need for upgraded radar technology.
"If I'm waiting for the tornado warning, especially in Florida, it may not come fast enough if it's on one of those loops where the tornado is touching down before the radar ever sees it," said Fugate. "Technology is changing, but that's going to mean we've got to upgrade our National Weather Service radars. The phased arrays can see them instantly."
Phased array radar is a new technology that encompasses a group of antennas to more efficiently spot weather events.
In a post on their Facebook page in November, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicated that new technologies like phased-array radar could improve warning times significantly.
"Because they’re no longer doing a loop — they’re just scanning in all directions. But that’s going to be an investment we have to make," said Fugate.
"Is it possible we need to go back and tweak the system?” Hussey asked Ulrich.
"We will continue to evaluate the technologies available to us, we will continue to improve the paradigm that we use as a weather forecast office to ensure the right warnings reach the right warnings at the same time," replied Ulrich.
The National Weather Service told WPTV they are evaluating the size and use of their polygons for future storms.
Additionally, Florida may soon be launching its own statewide solution using AI technology to assist in timely alerts.
