DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. — When Thursday's storms first started with big hail in Jefferson County, Lakewood used its outdoor sirens to warn people to take cover.
In Highlands Ranch, where a tornado hit, not a siren could be heard. That's because Douglas County doesn't have tornado sirens.
Deborah Takahara, a spokesperson for the sheriff's office, said the reason for that is the historical absence of tornadoes in Douglas County.
The National Weather Service (NWS) says Douglas County has had 60 tornadoes from 1950 to 2012, which averages out to about 1 per year. Comparatively, NWS has confirmed 15 tornadoes in Denver County, 87 in Arapahoe County and 256 in Weld County in the same amount of time.
According to Parker, which sits in the county, the local terrain also impacts the effectiveness of tornado sirens. When the price tag ($30 million just for installation, Parker says) is considered, the idea becomes cost prohibitive.
That cost, however contrasts starkly from the number given by Parker's neighbor. Castle Rock estimates installing sirens would cost about $1.16 million. 9NEWS asked Parker about that estimate from 2018. A spokesperson said they couldn't currently find the source of that number but would get back to us.
Douglas County isn't the only part of the metro area without tornado sirens. Places like Greeley, Fort Collins, Longmont and unincorporated Adams County don't have sirens either.
"It is a surprise to me," Denver Fire Captain Ahmid Nunn said Friday. "I grew up in the Montbello area, so any time there were tornadoes and the sirens going off, we knew exactly what to do and where to go."
Denver has a huge network of tornado sirens but came upon them more easily. Sirens were originally installed by the Civil Air Patrol decades ago -- a Cold War relic meant to alert people to a nuclear attack or air raid.
Tornado sirens only started warning about tornadoes in the 1970s, which is likely why they don't exist in a lot of newer suburbs, like Highlands Ranch.
"When those sirens go off it means someone has seen a tornado, which is usually initiated by the National Weather Service," Nunn said.
Denver spends about $2,500 for its yearly siren operating contract and $16,000 a year for maintenance and parts.
Neighbors in Douglas County have been wondering about the lack of sirens there for years. Looking into 9NEWS' archives, we found people worried about not having sirens in a story 25 years ago.
Back in 1998, like now, officials in Dougco advised people to pay attention to TV and radio alerts. But unlike 25 years ago, people now have the internet and cell phones, too.
Hopefully, people's phones made up for the siren silence during this recent storm. The National Weather Service automatically sends out Amber Alert-style notifications to people in the path of a tornado.
PHOTOS: Tornado causes significant damage in Highlands Ranch
With that said, more than a year of 9NEWS' reporting on emergency alerts tells us there are probably people who didn't get the message who needed it, and definitely people outside the threat area who got a message that didn't apply to them.
If your phone is more than about three years old, the system has a harder time knowing exactly where you are.
The tornado that hit Highlands Ranch on Thursday was categorized as an EF-1, with peak wind speeds of 97 miles per hour and a damage path more than 6 miles long.
On average, Colorado has 53 tornadoes annually. Most of them hit along and east of Interstate 25, but the NWS says they can happen anywhere in Colorado.
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