There were a number of tornadoes that hit our area, but the two that caused damage to the sirens in question are what I want to focus on. In the afternoon a tornado touched down to the south-of-east of Beauregard, AL in Society Hill. This tornado moved through the area as an EF-4. It more or less ripped the entire landscape apart as it moved through. Another EF-2 tornado formed behind it in Mount Andrew and followed a similar path which hit the area a second time. The initial one continued to move northeast going through Smiths Stations before crossing the Chattahoochee River into Muscogee County, GA just south of the Goat Rock Dam. By this point it had weakened to an EF-2 and at times an EF-1 and EF-0. The storm moved through Fortson (north Columbus), cutting across I-185 into Harris County where it clipped part of Cataula and ripped through Ellerslie. It continued it's path northeastward into Waverly Hall and eventually made its way to Talbotton where it nearly wiped the town off the map before lifting.
Going by the projection map the tornado tracked through Salem at one point. Right in the middle of the path laid the fire station for the area and its siren, a 2001-SRNB from the early 2000's. According to the EMA it took both tornadoes to the face, one of them knocking it off it's pole and, from some other reporting, tearing the station apart. The siren itself... well it's crumbled up on the ground somewhere out there. The director never specified which siren was taken out during the tornado in the article, however looking at the map it's clear that the tornado crossed this path. I don't have any pictures of it on hand, and the one online that was floating around on Facebook wasn't part of the siren. This is the location of the siren.
As the tornado moved into Georgia it crossed paths with a couple of 2001's located on the river. They are owned by the Goat Rock Dam and used for dam failure. They are tied into the county's system from what I understand. I think they both are 2001-SRNB's. The north siren wasn't hit going by the map, however the southern one took it point blank as an EF-2. I have no idea if it was taken out, but I wouldn't doubt it.
Bing has a view of it through their Streetview. https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=9524210f ... orm=S00027
On the Georgia side of things when the tornado came through it clung closely to Biggers Rd. In that area there are two 2810's. A little history, one replaced a 2001-SRN and the other a relocated SD-10 about roughly 16 years ago. It missed the 2810 closer to River Rd. by a few hundred feet, however the other one installed just south of the intersection of Biggers and Whitesville Rds. met its fate. The wind and debris hit the head of the siren, blowing it off the pole and shattering it as it came crashing down into the street. The head broke off in the same way the one I posted about earlier did, breaking apart from the bottom leaving half of a cell mounted onto the mounting bracket.
Here's what this siren looked like before the storm. No one has ever recorded this one, but more than likely it sounds off at 435 Hz in alert like the other originals throughout the county.
Tornado: 1 Siren: 0
So about the replacements. I'm 99% sure that if the Goat Rock Dam siren fell it will be replaced with a 130. The 2810 in Columbus will be replaced with a 2910. Like the other one, the controls survived and will be reused whenever the head gets replaced, making for two 2910s in Muscogee County and two somewhat rare occurrences of that head being paired with that particular version of the ESC-2020. The 2001-SRNB in Salem is a bit of a wild card. There is a possibility it may end up being replaced by a new 2001-130, however Lee County still has at least one spare 2001-"DC" that used to serve double duty for the county and Auburn University before being replaced by the campus's current system of 2904's. It would technically be a downgrade age-wise, but both will get roughly the same range to the point where it wouldn't be noticeable anyway. I'll have to check in with the EMA to see what's up with the replacement. I used to chat quite a bit with their former communications director about their system. He was knowledgeable on the different models as well as their old system of Thunderbolts and 2/3T22's. Since he left I haven't made any contact with their EMA, and since they may not know me as well they probably won't be able to go into specifics of the different models. If they say it'll be a brand new installation it most definitely will be a 130.
A couple other things I want to mention is that the tornado hit my mom's house. It knocked down a total of 18 trees by the count of the company removing them. Miraculously none of them hit the house. One fell on her shed, jamming the door shut. This is where I used to store my siren when I first got it until my grandfather convinced my grandmother to let me keep it at their house. Also Harris and Talbot Counties also have no siren system. Hamilton has an STH-10B that still works, however the city stopped using it years ago. Talbotton has a Darley 2V8. Might be time for them to consider getting a system, although I highly doubt they'll get adequate enough funding to do so. I might try and pull some strings eventually to look into helping them out.
