Limestone County was hit twice by severe storms last month, once on Dec. 16 and again two weeks later on Dec. 30.

In each instance, meteorologists and forecasters warned for two or three days in advance about the possibility of severe weather. And by general rule of thumb, if it’s December and it’s muggy enough to be running the air conditioner, you can almost bet storms are imminent.

Still, there are folks who are caught unprepared each time a severe storm spawns a tornado, which was the case last month. We’re not sure if the issue is a lack of preparation, lack of education or just general disregard for their own personal safety.

Athens and Limestone officials have said this over and over again: The time to prepare for a tornado isn’t when a tornado warning is issued.

With the December storms, we were incredibly lucky. No one died, and no injuries were reported. The same can’t be said for Chase Godsey and Keisha Cross Godsey, the Town Creek couple killed when a tornado hit their mobile home. Their son, Landen Godsey, continues to recuperate at Children’s of Alabama in Birmingham.

Some in Town Creek said they never heard sirens before the storm hit. Some in Limestone County said they never heard the siren before the Dec. 30 tornado. In the case of the latter, it’s because a tornado warning was never issued, so the sirens weren’t activated.

In the case of the former, it’s unknown why the siren didn’t sound, but Town Creek Mayor Mike Parker told The Decatur Daily the couple’s home was too far away from a siren for them to have heard it. The sirens have only a 1-mile sound radius.

There’s reason to believe, however, the tornado warning isn’t as important as a tornado watch. Warned storms are either radar-indicated or witnessed by a trained storm spotter. Each method has room for error.

If the National Weather Service issues a tornado watch, that means conditions are right for a tornado. Any storm that develops in a county under a tornado watch has the potential to produce a tornado, even if a warning hasn’t been issued.

In the case of the Dec. 30 tornado, WHNT meteorologist Jason Simpson, in a blog post, described the lack of warning as a “missed event.”

It isn’t the first time the Athens-Limestone area has been caught off guard by a tornado. In May 2013, a funnel cloud was observed near Steelcase in Athens. A warning wasn’t issued until nine minutes later. By that time, the storm caused minor damage in the busy U.S. 72 corridor near Walmart in Athens.

In March 2012, a similar concern arose after a tornado struck Canebrake Subdivision in east Athens before sirens ever sounded.

It’s now 2020, and there shouldn’t be any reason for someone not to be aware of when the county is under a tornado watch. According to a February 2019 Pew Research survey, 81% of Americans reported having a smartphone, while an additional 13% said they owned a mobile phone that was not a smartphone. Only 6% of those surveyed said they owned neither.

If you have a smartphone, there are a wide variety of free local weather and news apps available through your Apple or Android store. These apps enable users to enable notifications, so they can receive push alerts on news and weather, including watches and warnings.

When watches are issued in Limestone County, the local Emergency Management Agency unlocks the county safe rooms and community storm shelters. It may not seem all that much fun to hang out in a big room with a bunch of strangers, but they’re built to Federal EMA specifications and are designed to withstand a powerful tornado.

In other words, your odds of surviving a tornado are better inside a community safe room than inside a mobile home, which can be damaged by straight-line winds. An EF1 or EF2 tornado can crush a double-wide mobile home like a soda can.

Humans, however, like to roll the dice on weather. In most cases, your odds of surviving a storm do outweigh dying in one. However, it only takes a funnel cloud jogging left or right or dropping at a certain point to become a very deadly gamble.

People accuse TV meteorologists of trying to scare people, but it’s only because they know tornadic super cells are unpredictable. If anything, they’re trying to scare people into caring about their own well-being.

If you’re reading this now, we implore you to make a plan if you don’t have one — and review your plan if you have one. North Alabama’s primary severe weather season runs from March to May, with April being particularly dangerous. That’s not to say we won’t have a tornado in January or February. In “Dixie Alley,” the name meteorologists have given a swath of the southeast (including North Alabama), anything is possible.

If you don’t have a way to get weather alerts, start there. NOAA weather radios are generally $30 or less and can be purchased at any Walmart or Publix and some Dollar Generals. If you have a phone that will enable you to receive weather alerts via app, download one or several local weather apps. Most TV news affiliates in the Huntsville area have one.

Once you have a way to receive information about tornado watches, know where to go when one is issued. Do you have a safe place? Do you have a shelter nearby? Visit https://bit.ly/LCEMAshelters for a list of storm shelters and community safe rooms. If you don’t have a way to see the list on a phone or computer, call the Limestone EMA at 256-232-2631.