Sheriff's captain takes blame for siren mishap
ELKHORN — Walworth County Sheriff’s Department Communications Capt. Jay Maritz took responsibility for not turning on the tornado warning sirens in 10 Walworth County communities Monday afternoon.
“This one was strictly my issue,” Maritz said. “We’ve taken steps now so it won’t be an issue in the future.”
At the 911 dispatch console inside the Walworth County Law Enforcement Center, Maritz told a dispatcher to press one necessary button but failed to have the dispatcher press another button needed to reach municipalities dispatched by the county.
The sirens did not sound automatically from the sheriff’s department signal in Genoa City, Elkhorn, Darien, Fontana, Sharon, East Troy, Williams Bay, Delavan Township, Geneva Township, Linn Township and a privately maintained siren at the Country Estates subdivision in Lyons Township.
Walworth, Sharon and Fontana set their sirens off manually.
“That’s part of the problem with putting everything into one nest egg,” Fontana Police Chief Steve Olson said of the situation.
Fontana usually sets off its sirens manually if someone is around, but it does rely on the county for backup, Olson said.
To make sure the sheriff’s department doesn’t make the mistake in the future, all dispatchers will be retrained, and Sheriff David Graves hopes to run tests throughout the county.
Genoa City, miles away from where a destructive tornado touched down in Kenosha County, had several calls asking why there wasn’t a warning, according to village officials.
The village safety committee, police department and fire department will review protocols for turning on the sirens there manually during a weather emergency, Fire Chief Brad Poltermann said.
“We’ve probably not reviewed that in about three years,” he said. “We’ll probably sit down and review it and make sure there’s a backup plan in place … if it does happen again.”
Other communities where the sirens didn’t go off are following suit, according to police and fire officials.
The county will run a siren test at noon on Saturday, Feb. 2. Maritz doesn’t expect any further problems.
Jan 10, 2008 at 1:57 p.m.
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Sure, is nice that he took responsibility, but what about the article on tuesday when he was very quick to blame it on a "local problem"? He was more concerned in deflecting blame than finding out what was the problem. Why was he(the supervisor) telling the dispatchers what they needed to do during the emergency? Emergency situations like this occur at anytime of the day. The dispatchers should be able to handle this on their own. I'm sure they can, but they had their supervisor standing over their shoulder. Why are they waiting until next month to run tests? It seems to me that this is an issue that demands immediate attention, and this paper should follow up on it so the residents that count on this system for their safety know that actions have been taken.
Jan 9, 2008 at 8:49 p.m.
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It's a shame human error happened during an emergency. I'm glad Captain Maritz took responsibility and is working to improve emergency preparedness. What a wake up call for cities! Being proactive from henceforth is an important step! Having city safety committees, police/fire departments, and city/county officials review plans and procedures, retrain dispatchers, etc will definitely help prevent future issues. I hope cities set a policy to review all protocols at 1-2 year intervals from now on!
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