Is AI monitoring the cameras 24/7?
Does a person have to be monitoring?
How does that work and how does it work after ya'll spot a likely tornado....who do you contact to get the word out?
We have an AI setting that will automatically turn the camera towards the closest storm or we can control them manually. There's not a functionality that can automatically send out an alert if it thinks it sees anything...yet. During days when storms are in the state, we have guys on the team that watch radar and as storms approach one of our camera locations, will make sure it's pointed the right way. Additionally, the NWS and county EMA offices have view links to the cameras. The NWS was watching the live video feed last year and saw a tornado near Rolling Fork form in real time so the warning was out seconds after detection. Matt Laubhan has the ability to turn our cameras, too. Lastly, Hazcams (group that makes the software box) has a couple of guys that will monitor the cameras and can turn them.
When one of us spots a tornado on camera, our media guy has a direct link to NWS chat and can put in the report. They monitor that constantly. We also have their phone numbers and can let them know that way. Either way, the NWS is informed of a tornado within 30 seconds of us seeing it.
We also report the tornado to our media partners, too, after we alert the NWS and our Facebook page is set that as soon as a warning is issued in the northern half of the state, a post is automatically generated. As we expand more into the southern parts of the state and we have the funding to do so, we'll probably up our subscription service to auto generate warnings there. For now, our social media guy makes a post manually. That guy, on significant severe weather days, will go 20-30 hours straight making sure information goes where it needs to as soon as it needs to.
