A number of Shelby County residents are in the dark as this years&8217; tornado season looms ominously closer.

According to Shelby County EMA director Don Greene, the 62 tornado warning sirens currently operating in the county do not reach a large number of local residents.

The county recently received a grant that will provide for $114,000 in new warning equipment, but the timeline for the installation of new sirens is set for early July.

This leaves over 20 percent of Shelby County residents without any forewarning should a tornado or severe weather approach them.

Currently, cities like Wilsonville, Wilton and Westover are, for the most part, in the dark when it comes to tornado warnings.

Our community is growing at a lightning-fast pace, and with this boom comes responsibility.

If Shelby County government fails to properly protect our communities from a proven killer, then it is gambling with our lives.

Last Sunday 27 people were killed by tornados in Tennessee, Missouri and Illinois while server damage was reported in Arkansas and Kentucky.

Only time will tell when the next tornado touches down in our county. But if history repeats itself, as it so often does, our community&8217;s lack of proper warnings for all its residents could prove deadly.

Ensuring the safety of Shelby county residents should be the priority of the government on the municipal, county and state levels.

More people move to our county every day. If we don&8217;t make plans ahead of time for keeping them properly informed about severe weather, someone is bound to get killed