As an EF-2 tornado ripped trees and roofs around parts of Vicksburg and Warren County on March 21, Warren County Board of Supervisors President Bill Lauderdale was at a chamber of commerce luncheon waiting to hear a speech from the director of the U.S. Army Corps’ Engineer Research and Development Center.

He was among the first to know about the damaging gusts — without an ounce of help from the county’s 17 aging warning sirens, which stood silent through the bad weather. It was newer technology that warned the 65-year-old Lauderdale.

“My CodeRed went off before ERDC could warn their folks,” he said. “I guess their meteorologists didn’t get it out as quick as the CodeRed did.”

CodeRed is a City of Vicksburg alarm system that alerts residents through their mobile or home phones.

More than 18 months have passed since the county’s most recent serious public discussion on emergency warnings from the sirens erected in 1985 to alert the area of emergencies at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station, the Entergy power plant that had just opened in Claiborne County.

Along the way, they were used to alert residents that bad weather was approaching.

But this is 2012, and the sirens have not worked for about two years. As they broke down, the Warren County Board of Supervisors chose to allow their use to be restricted to their original intent.

Most are concentrated south of Interstate 20, including one at ERDC and owned by the Corps of Engineers.

Public outcry over the dysfunctional sirens since last month’s twister, which damaged property but took no lives, has found its way onto online forums and “a couple phone calls” to Lauderdale’s office.

He and other officials say the concern is understandable, but they are quick to remind they weren’t intended to be tornado warning sirens. Doing anything with the sirens — including taking them down — is too expensive and it’s easier to use mobile technology — such as Lauderdale’s — or NOAA weather radios to track looming storms.

Automated phone calls warning of looming tornadoes are part of the CodeRed plan offered by the City of Vicksburg and go only to city addresses. Lauderdale lives outside the city, but his county-issued cell phone is tied to a Vicksburg address.

That leaves non-CodeRed residents and county residents to seek their own warning methods — without the sirens.

“It’s not cost-effective to replace or repair them,” said Emergency Management Director John Elfer, hired from the sheriff’s department last June to replace Gwen Coleman, who retired. “My guidance is to encourage people to use weather radios and free apps on cell phones.”

In late 2010, the county directed $100,000 in hazard-mitigation grant money to technical upgrades to computers and phones in the emergency management office in the courthouse basement. Five percent of the grants, which are tied to federal disasters, can be used for such items as generators and warning systems, said Jeff Rent, spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, which administers the grants from FEMA to local governments in the state. If it’s a tornado-related disaster, localities may ask for an additional 5 percent, he said.

“No such grant funds are available right now,” Rent said, adding no state law requires counties to test outdoor warning systems.

“There are inherent drawbacks when relying solely on sirens,” he said, adding rain and wind make sirens difficult to hear. “This is old technology designed to notify people in the immediate area who are outdoors.”

These days, the agency promotes NOAA weather radios, smartphone apps and such phone message systems as CodeRed.

“We feel every resident has some responsibility for personal preparedness and part of that is making sure they have a way to receive severe weather warnings,” Rent said.

At ERDC, a messaging system managed by the center’s security office notified employees on their computers and cell phones on March 21, when straight-line winds flipped a construction trailer, damaged roofs and cars and smashed a security fence near the facility’s lab complexes along Porters Chapel Road.

“ERDC now relies on an automated Emergency Notification System as our primary notification system for employees,” said spokeswoman Debbie Quimby.

The CodeRed emergency warning system began for Vicksburg residents in 2008. Residents of addresses inside the city may sign up, at no cost to the resident, by visiting the city’s website or calling the city’s action line. Participation grew to nearly 6,000 by late 2010, before people could choose what types of warning calls they wanted. Currently, the system has 1,159 participants, with “50 to 100” sign-ups in the past month, said the city’s emergency planner Anna Booth. In December, the city added a weather warning system to the service, at a cost of $10,700 to the city by next year.

Supervisors have cited cost and doubts about participation for reasons they haven’t finalized a deal to expand CodeRed countywide with Emergency Communications Network LLC, the service’s Florida-based provider. Calculations in 2010 based on talks with the city and the company showed it would cost the county $13,500 a year to offer it to county residents.

The most conservative estimate to repair a single siren is $20,000 and none are tested audibly anymore, said Ken Coleman, the county’s information technology director.

“There was never an adequate number of them to cover Warren County anyway,” Coleman said.

Whether the service will be opened to residents outside the city remains in question.

“I think that’ll be left up to the board,” Lauderdale said. “John Elfer and Ken Coleman should be bringing us information on if and when we’ll be doing anything.”

Meanwhile, Lauderdale likes the system. So much so, he’ll stay on the call list.

“It’s a good warning system,” he said. “I’ve been on it since the beginning. It works. It works well.”