Hello!
This morning at around noon I woke up to a persistent droning sound, at first I thought it was the sound of a car's motor stalling. But then I noticed it wasn't stopping, after about 5 minutes of sounding.
It was very distant and hard to hear, but the more I listened, the more it sounded a lot like an ACA Allertor. It sounded like it was rotating, and at a very far distance since it could only be heard while I assume it was facing my direction.
Our sirens here test on the second Wednesday of the month, which is tomorrow! So it's odd to hear one sounding today. I feel like nearby municipalities are likely to test at different times though.
I've also been all over the city siren spotting and have only ever seen/heard 2001s, since our system was updated around 2011 or 2012 to contain only 2001s.
It's cool that it sounded like an Allertor because I'm aware that one used to be located on top of our Memorial Hall for many years before being replaced by a 2001. We also used to have several Thunderbolts that were relocated to the surrounding cities of Baxter Springs and Granby. I see no reason why the Allertor can't have also been relocated, though it's not noted on any MO siren maps I've seen.
Does anyone know anything about a possible relocation or what I may have heard? I would love to get photos of it or hear it tested sometime if the Allertor is truly still located nearby. Any photos I've seen or Google Images that show the Allertor back when it had been mounted on City Hall seemed to be in good condition, so I don't believe it was scrapped. EDIT: scratch that last part, all images are just too blurry to tell what the condition is on either device
Edit: According to this article (https://www.joplinglobe.com/news/local_ ... a7ba1.html) the Allertor was replaced in 2009! I'm not sure what the other old siren that was replaced was, very interesting, I might go look it up. I'm assuming all sirens were replaced with 2001s at this time.
Edit2: After some sleuthing in google maps, I have verified that at one point there were 2 Allertors in the city of Joplin, both of which were replaced by 2001s in the year 2009. One was located on top of Memorial Hall and appeared to be white, and the second was located at the intersection of W 35th and Hearnes Blvd. This one was yellow! With this in mind, and given the fact that Joplin did reinstall some of their older models in nearby cities, I think it's pretty likely at least one of them is still in use!
This seems a little pointless in retrospect since in an older thread I made, I'd been told already about the Allertors. But this is exciting to me, that I was able to find the former locations of both, and I do strongly believe I heard a 5 minute test in alert this morning. Will update this thread if I happen to find the current location of either of these sirens!
On the roof of the building on the right you can see the faint shape of a white or light blue Allertor siren, this would be the Memorial Hall siren
EDIT: I feel dumb and accidentally grabbed a shot from 2016 of the back of the 2001 LOL. Here is the location of the siren on google maps, view it prior to 2009 and you can see the blurry Allertor! Distinguised by the visibility of 2 openings on the front rather than 1. I'm sorry I'm fairly new to this whole google maps siren sleuthing thing.
https://goo.gl/maps/7uPuMX9URbr
These are all Google Maps images of the 35th and Hearnes Allertor from 2007 and 2009. One is even an image of its removal! Currently the double pole mount is no longer there and there is no trace of the siren in this location. A replacement 2001 was installed a block away.