Megan Navarro
WIMBERLEY — During its Jan. 15 meeting, Wimberley City Council heard a presentation from Hays County Office of Emergency Services Director Mike Jones on sirens and other emergency-related alerts in the city.
The update given by Jones follows a previous discussion that city council had last year after the flooding events that took place in several areas across the Texas Hill Country during the Fourth of July weekend. At the time, Wimberley Mayor Jim Chiles said that he had been in conversation with Jones, who had explained that the county was working to receive a grant that would help in getting sirens, as the city is interested in having those for weather-related emergency communications.
Hays County will be installing a Perry Weather system over Jacob’s Well. This system identifies when lightning strikes 10 miles from a location, Jones explained, with the possibility to narrow down that mile radius even further.
“What that does for us is when we have citizens and visitors come into the Jacob’s Well area and we have weather moving in, it will give them automatic notification to get back indoors until that lightning goes away. It goes off on a timer, so if we have a lightning strike, it’ll go 30 minutes; if we don’t have another lightning strike, then it will be safe to come back outdoors,” he said.
This system would also give the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature — critical for making heat safety decisions for student athletes, workers or outdoor events. When the weather is extreme, it would advise the local Wimberley High School coaches on when it would be a good time to go indoors for practice, rather than outdoors, Jones noted.
Perry Weather would be available through an app that is downloadable on mobile devices.
As for the sirens, Jones stated that he had a study done by an out-of-state company, who said that there would need to be 25 sirens along the Blanco River, but he believes that five would be sufficient for Wimberley’s part of the river.
Knowing that the cost of sirens is exponential, the director explained that he had grant application out — one of which was through the General Land Office that was submitted at least a year ago and that they are still considering the process.
“I think we have a good chance of getting that grant and the reason I say that is the grant is based on unallocated funds from the 2015 floods. Does anybody know who was around for the 2015 floods? Like this entire city, right? So, that’s why I say we have a pretty good chance in getting the unallocated funds from the 2015 floods,” Jones said. “It’s just waiting on the General Land Office to put it all together.”
Council member Rebecca Minnick recalled back to July 3, 2025, when she was at the Wimberley Cafe, and everyone started to receive alerts on their phones. She stated that they would pick up their phone for a quick glance, but then put them back down.
She then asked Jones how to discern the different alerts and how to create more urgency for emergency situations, like flooding or fires.
“You have different types of alerts on your phone, number one. You have the AMBER Alert that you always see. You also have the public safety emergency alerts. I would encourage people not to disengage the public safety emergency alerts — keep that current,” Jones responded. “When the National Weather Service sends out alerts, it’s going to be IPAWS, the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. You can’t turn that off, it’s going to come to your phone, whether you like it or not.”
Hays County does not “double down” on the IPAWS, as it’s left up to the National Weather Service, Jones said. He continued that the county learned its lesson back during the 2015 floods, when every entity was trying to alert everyone and the result was “we pretty much broke the system. When I say break it, we inundated it with so much information that it crashed, so learning from that, the National Weather Service sends out the alert systems for weather. If a citizen decides to turn that off and just disregard it, there’s not much we can do about that.”
Education is key, the director continued, as when people come to the community to vacation, it needs to be instilled in them that it’s a beautiful place to visit, but when there are weather alerts, they need to be taken seriously.
“You hear and you honor the threat, even if it means going to the cafe and having coffee and nothing happens,” Jones said. “You honor that threat. So, if we put that message out and let folks know, ‘It’s only a few minutes of your time that can save lives.’”
For the sirens and additional low-water crossings within the county, Jones said that Wimberley will be his focus, Dripping Springs will be the second and then, it will be Buda. He added that his plan for the Perry Weather system will be active no later than March 1.
To listen to the full update, visit www.cityofwimberley.com/292/Public-Meetings.
Wimberley City Council meets next at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6.
