Hundreds of thousands of people in and around Ottawa received a tornado warning on Tuesday, advising people to immediately take cover if threatening weather approaches. Those warnings were sent to phones and televisions across the entire city of Ottawa as well as the United Counties of Prescott and Russell. However, no tornado touched down, and the real risk was more concentrated around Vars, Ont. That widespread warning is something storm chaser and photographer Connor Mockett takes issue with. “There are too many people inside that warning region that simply don’t need the warning at all. Towards Arnprior, it was sunny outside,” he said. “If you’re issuing warning boxes that big, a large majority of that warning box has nothing to worry about and that’s when people start disregarding the warnings.” Mockett is concerned the wide-reaching warnings will create a sort of ‘boy who cried wolf effect’. He suggests using a similar approach as the United States, where only those in the narrow path of a potential tornado are alerted. “We need storm-based warnings… We can’t continue to have giant warning regions,” said Mockett. “It should have been done many, many years ago, but here we are still talking about this. I know the Environment Canada meteorologists at the desk that are issuing the warnings want the change as well… this is not their fault at all.” Mockett says Tuesday’s weather event warranted a warning, but the large area it covered was a disservice to the public. “Obviously, the warning on Tuesday was needed. There was rotation there,” said Mockett. “But the simple fact is that there are too many people inside that warning region that don’t need to be warned and then they’re going to start disregarding warnings. That’s my fear.” Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) meteorologist Jean-Philippe Bégin says it’s a situation the agency takes seriously. “We never issue tornado warnings lightly. It’s always sent from our colleagues with strong evidence that there is a tornado or that it is likely,” he said. “In this case, we had three good pieces of evidence so that’s the reason why.” Bégin says meteorologists issue the warning, then it goes into the broadcast system and the Alert Ready system. “Depending on your location and the cell towers and the broadcasting systems, that’s something we don’t control exactly,” he said. “I can’t go into too much detail, but of course, the Alert Ready system is meant to send alerts for people in the area affected by, in this case, the tornado threat.” No one from ECCC or Alert Ready, Canada’s emergency alerting system, could explain why so many people were sent the tornado warning Tuesday. In a statement to CTV News Ottawa, Alert Ready said it is up to ECCC to determine the geographical area that receives a warning. “The use of the Alert Ready system to issue a public alert is at the sole discretion of the authorized government issuer, to determine if/when an alert is issued, the content of the alert and the geographical area that is to receive the alert,” said a spokesperson for Alert Ready. “We recommend contacting Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) directly to discuss the criteria for tornado alerts and the geographical areas for which they are issued.” When CTV News Ottawa forwarded the message from Alert Ready to ECCC, no one from the government agency responded to our request for comment. Even though no tornado touched down in Ottawa or the surrounding eastern Ontario communities, it appears one did hit near Harrington, Que., roughly 120 kilometres northeast of downtown Ottawa. “We have 66 per cent of our roads that are affected by trees,” said Harrington Mayor Gabrielle Parr. Hundreds were also left without power due to downed hydro lines. With files from CTV’s Swidda Rassy
