Emergency sirens are an important part of the City of Fargo’s public safety infrastructure. As part of annual maintenance, tone testing on individual Fargo sirens may be heard during the day Monday, April 29 through Friday, May 3, while crews work on the system.
During North Dakota Severe Weather Awareness Week, there will be a full-system test of the outdoor siren warning system in the City of Fargo on Wednesday, May 1 at 1 p.m. Schools, businesses and other facilities are encouraged to conduct a tornado drill at this time to practice their tornado sheltering plans.
What to do when you hear the sirens (when a test is not scheduled):
- Seek shelter indoors and turn on local media (local broadcast channels, radio). Hearing a siren does not mean you should evacuate. Follow directions from local officials, including information provided by the National Weather Service.
- Do not assume there is no emergency because skies are clear; there may be a non-weather related emergency.
- Only call 9-1-1 in case of an actual emergency. Please do not use 9-1-1 to ask questions about the siren system; all questions should be directed to the Office of Emergency Management at 701.476.4068.
The siren structure is an outdoor warning system; therefore, you may not be able to hear the sirens indoors or during an actual event due to high winds and weather conditions. Cass Fargo Emergency Management recommends signing up for CodeRED weather alerts and having a NOAA All-Hazards Weather Radio with Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) technology to provide dependable indoor warning information.