Tornado Drill Will Take Place In Beltrami County

Although Minnesota’s statewide tornado drill for Severe Weather Awareness Week has been cancelled due to an incoming snowstorm, Beltrami County will still be participating in the tornado drill scheduled for Thursday. Beltrami County Emergency Services Director Christopher Muller says they made the choice to continue with the drills because the county is not experiencing any severe weather.

The National Weather Service will not be issuing the alerts over the NOAA weather radio. Muller says to be aware of the time of the drill even though you won’t get a notification on your phone or TV screen.

“Just say, ‘hey, if this were to really occur, this is what we would do, we would enact our tornado or severe weather response plan, this is where we would go.’ Whether or not you actually want to go into your shelter areas is completely up to you,” said Muller. “But just make sure that you have a plan and know what you would have to do if these alerts were to occur.”

Muller says the sirens will be going off in Bemidji and other communities in Beltrami County at 1:45 PM and 6:45 PM on Thursday.