BROOKINGS — The sirens and cellphone alarms that went off around town Monday night were with good cause, as the city was on the northern edge of a monster storm that produced 17 tornadoes and at least one death, in Oklahoma.

Brookings was under two separate tornado warnings Monday night — the first from around 8:20 to 8:45 p.m. and the second from 8:42 to 9:15 p.m.

According to Brookings Emergency Manager Bob Hill, the two possible troublesome weather cells nearly crossed each other’s path south of town.

A severe weather warning is a higher alert than a watch, and means that the storm — in this case a tornado — is “… forming, observed, or detected by radar,” according to the National Weather Service. While a watch means residents should be alert, when officials send a warning, they want citizens to take immediate action.

That involves all the usual caveats — get inside if you’re outside, get to a basement in the middle of a room or where there are no windows. If you have no basement or safe space to go, get to an emergency shelter or designated shelter area. Get out of mobile homes and never take shelter under an overpass.

According to Hill, the storm reaching far enough north to impact Brookings was a relatively fast-moving phenomenon.

“First thing in the morning we were all clear, and the next update we had maybe thunder,” Hill said. “But by the noon update we were dead in the path of that storm. Until then I really didn’t think we were going to get hit.”

According to Hill, a pair of twisters did actually touch down West River, near the town of Hoover, which is north of Sturgis.

The National Weather Service listed 17 reports of tornadoes from Monday evening through early Tuesday in the central part of the United States. Eight were in Oklahoma, with two each in Kansas and Iowa, and one each in Nebraska, Missouri and Tennessee in addition to the pair in South Dakota.

Hardest hit by the storm was Barnsdall, Oklahoma, 40 miles north of Tulsa, where a tornado ripped through the 1,000-person town. It was the second tornado to hit Barnsdall in five weeks — a twister on April 1 with maximum wind speeds of 90 to 100 mph damaged homes and blew down trees and power poles. One person there died and another was missing on Tuesday afternoon.

Locally, the severe weather warning from the NWS initiated emergency protocols, including alerts sent to cellphones in the area and the outdoor sirens being set off.

Though those are plenty loud depending on where one lives in town, Hill cautioned residents not to rely only on the emergency sirens.

“We do want to caution people, those are designed as outdoor severe weather emergency sirens — they’re not designed to make sure everyone in a house hears them,” Hill said. “Make sure to have an emergency weather radio, don’t rely on the outdoor sirens exclusively.”

The emergency protocols also involve opening the city/county government building as an emergency tornado shelter.

“I do want to give a shout out to our 9-1-1 center. They started the process, and by the time I got there they already had the shelter ready and open,” Hill said. “We all work together in Brookings County and they sure did an outstanding job.”

Other county tornado shelters are: In Aurora, the fire department building; in Bruce, the Community Center basement; in Bushnell, City Hall; in Elkton, the Fire Department Building; in Sinai, the Lutheran Church basement; in Volga, the City Auditorium; and in White, St. Paul’s Catholic Church basement.

During Tuesday morning’s Brookings County Commission meeting, Hill said Monday night’s tornado warnings were specifically first for the central part of Brookings County — including Brookings, Volga and Aurora — and the other for the eastern side of the county, including Elkton.

The second cell did knock power out in Elkton for a time, Hill added.

Hill said he thought it was the first time the sirens in Brookings had been used since the derecho that took down trees and knocked out power all over town on May 12, 2022.

“I would have to almost say yes — I don’t remember setting them off last year,” Hill said.

Brookings has been largely lucky with storms so fall this spring, but Hill said folks should still stay on alert.

“It’s been an odd year for weather — we keep hearing especially about bad hail down south, in Oklahoma and Kansas. Hopefully that stays well clear of us, because that can really do some damage, especially after the crops go in,” Hill said.

Linehan is the Register’s managing editor and welcomes comments at jlinehan@brookingsregister.com. Staff writer Mondell Keck and the Associated Press contributed reporting to this story.