The date nears for a critical collaboration that has mysteriously been absent from our Quad-Cities. On July 21, emergency service providers across the Iowa and Illinois Quad-Cities will coordinate the sounding of emergency weather sirens.

The date reflects the one-year anniversary of windstorms that wreaked havoc across our two-state region. For that storm, some warning sirens sounded and others remained silent. Beginning July 21, a new policy will assure all Quad-City sirens sound in advance of intense severe thunderstorms with winds of at least 70 mph.

Top gusts fell a bit short - just 65 mph - during Saturday's windstorm that knocked out power to 13,000 Q-C utility customers.

Still, given that we're in the midst of traditional Q-C storm season, we're wondering: Why wait until July 21?