To the editor:<\/p>\n
On Sunday, May 17, what has been reported as a tornado occurred in Cape Coral. No watch or warning was issued! Is the system broken? Well readers, we have no severe weather sirens in Lee County.<\/p>\n
From WUSF, Sept. 21 ,2025: \u201cMost communities do not have active tornado sirens, but major universities and a few towns in central and north Florida have adopted the technology to help warn residents of severe weather.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
The National Weather Service issues severe weather conditions when there is imminent danger to life and property.<\/p>\n
I called Lee County emergency preparedness at 239-533-3911, and I was told that we do not have tornado sirens.<\/p>\n
A tornado watch is issued by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s storm prediction center by their meteorologists.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
DOGE cut hundreds of forecasters and other federal oceanic atmospheric employees and 600 probation employees in our weather services.<\/p>\n
What is their job? The job of NOAA and the NWS is to monitor the nation\u2019s daily weather forecasts, severe storms warnings and climate monitoring. On Feb. 17,2025, DOGE released employees and released the names of the federal contracts to 39 federal departments that were canceled. <\/p>\n
I refuse to accept the unacceptable.<\/p>\n
Lee County is in Zone 4 for disaster preparedness and currently the director position is currently vacant.<\/p>\n
The system is broken!<\/p>\n
Could Lee County develop a different sound, like an amber alert for the citizens of Lee County?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Safety and protecting human life should\u00a0 be the top priority for our community leaders.<\/p>\n
Kathleen Callard<\/p>\n
North Fort Myers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: On Sunday, May 17, what has been reported as a tornado occurred in Cape Coral.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-281497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}