An EF-1 tornado that struck a Montgomery neighborhood early Wednesday formed and touched down too quickly for the National Weather Service to issue a warning, an official with the NWS said.

That’s contrary to a statement made by Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed during a press conference about the storm Wednesday, a statement that was initially backed up by Montgomery City-County EMA Director Christina Thornton.

AL.com asked for more information because residents said they did not hear a warning siren before the storm.

There were no deaths or serious injuries from the tornado, officials said, and the area was under a severe thunderstorm warning and tornado watch.

John De Block, warning coordination meteorologist for the NWS in Birmingham, said the tornado developed suddenly in a line of thunderstorms that was part of an outbreak of severe weather that spawned at least 11 Alabama tornadoes over two days. De Block said the radar did not indicate a tornado was about to strike east Montgomery before it hit at 3 a.m. Wednesday.

“There was nothing really that would give us a heads-up notice to be able to issue a tornado warning to that storm,” De Block said. “Otherwise, we would be issuing hundreds of them. It was just one of those situations.”

DeBlock said it is not unusual for a tornado to touch down without an official warning from the NWS, especially during a cycle of severe weather like the one that hit Alabama on Tuesday and and Wednesday.

“Overall, I believe our probability of detection, which is basically our ability to see a tornado developing before it touches the ground and get a warning out, is about 75 percent,” he said.

“So, that leaves one out of four tornadoes that develops suddenly and can strike. And that’s why when we issue that tornado watch, you’ve got to be prepared.”

In this case, AL.com asked De Block and Thornton for more information after Reed, responding to a question at a press conference, said there was a warning and sirens before the tornado hit east Montgomery.

Residents told AL.com they did not hear sirens. Thornton initially told AL.com in an email that there was a warning and sirens before the storm.

The twister, which struck at 3 a.m. Wednesday, damaged homes, tossed vehicles, and snapped trees in and around the Halcyon neighborhood. One person was injured. Halcyon is off Taylor Road, one of Montgomery’s busiest corridors.

The NWS did issue a tornado warning that included the same area at 3:14 a.m., activating warning sirens at 3:18 a.m., according to the Montgomery City-County EMA.

That warning was for a storm further east, near the border of Montgomery and Macon counties, an EF-0 tornado that touched down in Shorter at 3:23 a.m., causing minor damage.

Thornton said she did not believe that Reed misspoke.

“We have gotten responses, even to our Facebook page, that people did hear sirens,” Thornton said. “It might not have been before the tornado. Because again, it happened so fast. And which unfortunately can happen during a tornado watch. Those storms and systems, that’s the whole purpose of a watch, that at any point in time you need to be safe, monitoring local weather, listening for your apps and your weather radios.”

Thornton said the lack of a warning before the Halcyon tornado was not because of any shortage of preparation or vigilance.

“Unfortunately, it’s one of those rare circumstances where it fell out of the sky before National Weather Service had a moment to add that warning so that the sirens and weather apps and weather radios were able to go off,” Thornton said. “It was a very busy night on the radar. There were so many powerful cells and things going on at one time. It’s absolutely sad and luckily it’s not a tragedy at this moment in time. Luckily, we didn’t lose anyone and didn’t have a loss of life at all.”

According to the NWS damage survey, the tornado began at 3 a.m. west of Bell Road and moved east-northeast for about two miles, with a maximum width of 130 yards. The intensity peaked around Meriwether Road and Hollis Drive in Halcyon, where the heaviest damage occurred. The twister weakened after crossing Taylor Road, and ended at 3:05 a.m., the NWS reported in the damage survey.

Reed’s office, asked about the fact that no warning came before the Halcyon tornado, an apparent conflict with his statement at the press conference, issued this statement: “With a nearly mile-long path and 50 homes impacted by the tornado, the fact that our community suffered zero fatalities and only one minor injury means Montgomery was well prepared thanks to our multi-tiered weather warning system, which comprises outdoor sirens, text alerts, an app with push notifications and the great work of our local meteorologists and other partners.”

The severe weather did not come as a surprise after several days of news coverage about its approach.

Thornton said the city and county agencies were monitoring the severe weather closely and reacted quickly.

“Police and fire units were out responding to the area,” Thornton said. “Montgomery EMA units responded to the area doing damage assessments in the pouring rain, trying to make sure people were there. All three of the city-county departments, that’s Montgomery fire, Montgomery rescue, and Montgomery city-county EMA, were all out there.”

Thornton said warning sirens aren’t meant to wake people up in their homes but are intended to tell people to get inside and monitor their weather radios and apps and local weather broadcasts.

“They’re not made for you to hear in your home,” Thornton said. “And there’s no way you’re going to hear that inside your home, inside your safe place, during a tornado. The winds are loud. There is a roaring sound from where that is happening.”

But some residents in Halcyon said they normally hear the warning sirens in their homes.

Kevin Knott, who lives on Meriwether Road just a few doors down from the heaviest damage, said he normally hears the sirens and also relies on phone alerts. He said the roar of the tornado woke him up Wednesday.

“I was sleeping then but when that first round came through it sounded just like a doggone freight train coming through,” Knott said. “Just a bunch of rumbling and shaking and vibrations. It was definitely something I’ve never experienced before. And I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

Knott, a retired special agent with the Department of Homeland Security who has lived in the Halcyon neighborhood about three years, said he believes he could have prepared better with a warning.

“I would have been able to get the kids and make sure we were all in the same location, in a safe area,” Knott said. “That was my main focus. I didn’t know what was going on.”

Jill Clark, who lives on Hollis Drive, said the storm woke up her and her husband, Jeff Clark.

“It was about 3 o’clock in the morning and the first thing we heard, you know how everybody always says it sounds like a freight train, that’s exactly what it sounded like,” said Clark, who is the high school girls basketball coach at Montgomery Preparatory Catholic School. “It sounded like a train in the middle of our house.

“We jumped up. We had some dogs in the den. We kind of went down through the hall. Some windows blew out at that time and broke. A lot of things just got blown off in there. And it was over. It probably didn’t even sound like it lasted 30 seconds.”

Clark said she normally hears the sirens in her house but did not on this occasion.

“If they went off, I didn’t hear them, and I haven’t heard anybody that lives here tell me that they heard them,” said Clark, who was cleaning up her yard Thursday morning. She lives across the street from the home that appeared to sustain the most damage and said it’s lucky that only one person was hurt.

“We’re very fortunate,” Clark said. “Could have been much worse.”

Thornton said the situation is a reminder that people should not wait until they hear sirens or warnings to take precautions.

“It was a terrible, terrible circumstance that the warning did not come out,” Thornton said. “But again, storms are unpredictable. That’s why we have to watch and listen to our local meteorologists when they’re on the air talking about this and they’ve warned us for days in advance that this was going to be severe.”

De Block said it would be ideal if the NWS could issue a warning before every tornado touches down but said that’s not a realistic expectation.

“Obviously we don’t like it when we miss one any more than a batter likes to strike out when they’re at the plate or miss that free throw,” De Block said. “We strive to issue warnings for every tornado that’s out there. It’s just the reality of the situation with mother nature and the limitations of the sensors that we have that unfortunately every once in a while we’re going to miss one.”

At Wednesday’s press conference, Reed praised the work of emergency workers and the agencies that prepared for the storm and said it was a blessing there were no deaths or serious injuries.

“I think as a community we have to make sure we are taking these things seriously and that we understand that in this time and in this area we are going to see more of these events and we just don’t know about the severity of it,” Reed said. “But we certainly pray to God on high for grace and blessings and I think that’s what we saw here today.”

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