Debris from some of the homes destroyed in Mayfield, Kentucky, after an overnight tornado left at least 70 dead across four states, Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021. Gov. Andy Beshear called the tornado the most devastating in Kentucky's history. (William DeShazer/The New York Times)

Maury County is installing its first tornado sirens following public demand after an EF-3 tornado destroyed multiple homes and killed one person in the city of Columbia in May 2024.

The mostly rural Middle Tennessee county broke ground on its first tornado siren on Oct. 21, according to Maury County Mayor Sheila Butt.

County commissioners charged Maury County Office of Emergency Management Director Jeff Hardy with crafting a plan to install the sirens, something Hardy said was challenging due to the area's rural nature.

"Our county is 620 square miles, and the vast majority of it is pretty rural areas, so there's not really a good system for warning people outside of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather radios and weather apps on their phones," Hardy told The Tennessee Lookout.

The county partnered with the City of Columbia and the City of Mt. Pleasant and agreed to install 20 total sirens in outdoor areas where people gather most.

Maury County purchased seven of the sirens for about $315,000 and will install them at Maury County Park, Chickasaw Park, Yanahli Park, Mt. Pleasant Schools, Hampshire Unit School, Culleoka Unit School and Santa Fe Unit School.

(READ MORE: What you do before and during a tornado could mean the difference between life and death)

"We have a lot of outdoor gatherings, a lot of festivals, people that are gathering at our parks and those areas, and we wanted to give those people as much advance warning as possible," Hardy said.

The unit schools are K-12 schools that serve smaller, tight-knit communities that live near the school buildings, according to Hardy.

Columbia will install 12 sirens, and Mt. Pleasant will install one. The sirens are expected to be in place by the end of November, weather permitting.

Cost and logistics proved to be hurdles for the project until recently, Hardy said. The county has grown significantly in the past decade, attracting people from other areas of the country who may not be familiar with Middle Tennessee weather patterns and hazards.

"As our demographics have changed, we've kind of had to readjust our warning systems and thought processes -- how do we communicate that to our citizens, warning them without scaring them?" he said.

The sirens are connected to the National Weather Service and will sound automatically during tornado warnings and warnings for other life-threatening events, like flash floods, Hardy said. The county is also able to manually sound the sirens should local officials observe threats not apparent to the National Weather Service.

They will not sound for tornado watches or watches issued for other severe weather. The National Weather Service issues warnings when hazardous weather conditions are occurring or imminent. A watch means that the "ingredients" for a severe weather event are present and an event is possible, but location and timing are not certain, according to the service's website.

Tornadoes have become more common in Tennessee in the last few decades.

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Twenty-one tornadoes have touched down in Maury County since 1950, according to data collected by the National Weather Service. Middle Tennessee recorded an average of 16 tornadoes per year from 1995 through 2025, up from an average of five tornadoes per year from 1950 through 1994, data shows.

While the effectiveness of outdoor tornado sirens has been scrutinized in recent years -- the sirens often cannot be heard indoors and have limited sound range -- a case study published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency highlighted the advantages of having warning sirens in place in rural Marshall County, Alabama when a tornado hit in April 2011.

Hardy said while the sirens will add to the county's overall preparedness for severe weather, they are only meant to warn people who are outdoors, and may not be audible for residents inside their homes or other buildings.

"We still encourage people to have a NOAA weather radio in their home, to have an app or two or three on their smart device, so that whether they're at home, they're on the go, they're at work, that they get adequate warning and pay attention to those warnings," Hardy said.

He also encourages Maury County residents to make a household plan for seeking shelter during a severe weather event.

Read more at TennesseeLookout.com.