Steve Bean is the guy who oversees Kansas City's 127 tornado sirens, each expected to alert people within a mile of potentially life-threatening storms. It's part of his job at the city's Office of Emergency Management.
Even so, he doesn't have tornado nightmares.
"In an odd way, I love it," he admits. "We spend a lot of time preparing for the 'big one,' so to speak. So it's kind of like — I guess it's like fishing. Once in a while, you want to catch something. Now, I don't want tornados to come, but we do like to be able to see that we made a difference."
On a normal day — a day with no tornados on the horizon — Bean focuses on ensuring that all the technology is up to snuff.
He starts by testing all 127 sirens, one at a time. Every single morning.
That process begins with something called "polling."
Bean sends a tone to each siren, and the siren, on receiving his message, sends back six separate tones to communicate that it's working properly. Each sound lets him know that a specific aspect of the siren is in solid, working order.
"It says, I've got AC power, my rotation's good, my radio's working," he explains.
He also goes out in his car and checks the sirens and the outskirts of their coverage areas, to ensure that new housing or business developments aren't out of range. If he thinks there's any doubt, he recommends a new siren.
As a storm begins to gather, everyone huddles in a central command center. They've got upper-level people from the Emergency Management office, the water department, the fire department, the police department and public works. That way, if for example, a barricade needs to be set up, someone with the clout to make it happen can issue the order on the spot.
This is called Level 1 Activation.
The space where Level 1 Activation occurs is like a war room. Radar imagery and weather reports are projected onto a 40-foot wall, and personnel stay in constant contact with the National Weather Service. They're also getting reports from specific counties.
Which brings us to the buttons that sound the sirens — if and when the time comes.
There are eight "missile-launch buttons," one for each county. They're color-coded, and you have to open a lid to push the button.
And yes. They're really called missile-launch buttons.
"It was the term we had when they were developing these," Bean says. "In the old war room movies, it seems like there was always a lid they'd flip up to make sure nobody accidentally launched a missile. We don't want to accidentally sound the sirens."
When they push the button, it sends a radio signal out.
"The button actually hears the radio signal get repeated, so it will light up to indicate to the pusher that the siren is now going," says Bean.
Typically, the button is pushed by someone at the Fire Department, because that is a 24/7 operation. That designation is also something of a legacy, a hold-over from back in the day when reports of fallen branches or wind damage were often the first signs of trouble. With today's weather-forecasting technology, it's rare that a storm hits without advance warning.
But that's exactly the kind of scenario that worries the unflappable Steve Bean.
The former police officer is the kind of guy who runs toward things, not away from them. That's by his own admission. But even he worries about the storms that strike in the middle of the night, without warning, while everyone's asleep.
His scariest moment along those lines was in 2008. Believing that the storm had passed, everyone packed up and went home.
"Unexpectedly," he recalls, "they stirred back up at about two in the morning and hit before we had a chance to sound the sirens, because usually we have a chance to see them coming, but sometimes they're 'born' so to speak right here."
But that's not the norm. And Bean thinks people should feel empowered by the knowledge that most of the information the city gets comes from the National Weather Service, and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) radios.
"NOAA weather radios are available for 30 bucks to John Q. Public," Bean says. "They can get 'em and have the same information we have."
Bean remembers a time before this system was in place. Back then, as a police officer, he'd get sent driving around neighborhoods in his police car, shouting warnings through a loud-speaker.
He seems to prefer the current arrangement. "I felt silly," he acknowledges.
Of course, he still gets plenty of guff.
"I will hear if there was a false alarm and I hear if I was too late," he says.
