On Dec. 11, dozens of residents huddled safely in storm shelters provided at five Warren County parks as the worst tornado outbreak to ever hit the area was leaving a path of destruction.

Many of those people found their way to shelters at Basil Griffin, Buchanon, Ephram White, Phil Moore and Ed Spear parks because of warnings they received through the county’s Community Outdoor Warning Siren, or COWS, system put together by Warren County Emergency Management.

The county’s 33 warning sirens led many to seek shelter at those county parks and others to find a safe place in their homes, meaning the high-pitched sounds blasted out by those sirens may have saved lives that day.

With markings resembling a black-and-white Holstein cow, the outdoor warning sirens have earned their stripes and proven to be a worthwhile investment.

When combined with the Alert Sense smartphone app and the Community Activated Lifesaving Voice Emergency System (CALVES), the sirens give county residents some confidence that they will have advance warning the next time Mother Nature decides to stir up trouble.

But those 33 sirens, while effective, are in many cases not sufficient to adequately cover the county’s 548 square miles and its many rural residents.

That’s why we think the county’s emergency management professionals and Warren Fiscal Court were wise to take action this month to further expand the COWS system.

Acting on a request brought to them by Emergency Management Deputy Director Travis Puckett, the magistrates voted April 11 to purchase 11 more warning sirens from Capitol Electronics at a cost of about $330,000.

That’s a hefty price tag, and we’re generally not in favor of profligate spending of your tax dollars, but public safety is one area where investment of public money is most often warranted.

As Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon said of the expenditure at the April 11 meeting: “In the wake of the tornadoes, it would be almost irresponsible of us not to do it.”

Besides, as Puckett pointed out when he presented the request to fiscal court, chances are good that the bulk of the cost will be covered by a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant. Puckett said that by bringing the county’s total number of COWS to 44, more than 90% of the county will be within earshot of a siren.

Puckett said preliminary plans call for the 11 new sirens to be placed at these locations: Smiths Grove Fire Department, Beech Bend Park, Richardsville Volunteer Fire Department Plum Springs station, Housing Authority of Bowling Green, Plum Springs Church, Barren River VFD station No. 1, Greenhill United Methodist Church, Flatrock Church, Browning VFD station No. 1, Old Union Missionary Baptist Church and Rich Pond Baptist Church.

The need for the sirens is such that Puckett believes they should be purchased with or without the FEMA grant.

“It the grant isn’t approved, it’s up to fiscal court (to purchase the sirens),” he said. “I’m sure we could find money for public safety.”

Like Puckett and no doubt others in emergency management, we believe this is one purchase that should move forward, for safety’s sake.