It's a terrible solution if it is the only solution. Up until this situation, the alerts I received on my phone have been pretty spot on, which has been impressive. Yes, local sirens are a good idea, but they come with caveats. I have local sirens in my area, but they are for tornado or other severe weather. If I hear those sirens, my action to take is totally different than for a flood. Naturally, if I were to come to an area where the sirens are meant for flooding, my reaction to them would be the wrong move. I would hope that a siren for flooding would just sound different than how the established tornado siren warning system sounds.

This trained response to a siren/warning system is the reason they chose not to use the tsunami warning system in Hawaii during the fire. When that siren goes off, people seek higher ground which would have driven them to the fire.