Andover, KS sirens

[siren fan]

I was watching some old tornado footage and the famous 1991 Andover, KS F5 twister came up. The town had a siren system but it was malfunctioning at the time so the local police department sent squad cars through out the town to warn residents of the impending doom. Does anyone know what sirens they had back ten and why they weren't working? I'm assuming Thunderbolt's since that's what nearby Wichita had at the time. Andover now has a system of FS 2001's.

[Archon]

Well to begin with They had 1 TB and it was working in the videos you can hear it going in the background plain as day. along with the AFB 2T22. when the tornado was in town it knock all the power out and both sirens went silent. So both were going until power was cut.

[Vey198885]

Can you post me a link for the footage?

[metalstorm]

The footage of the tornado with the 2t22 and the Tbolt were from Sedgewick county which is home to Wichita where the tornado first touched down. It came into Butler county with its sights set on Andover. Andover police dispatch attempted to activate the 1 Tbolt in Andover but could not get a signal through due to too much radio activity on the police band. The on duty police officers then sounded their car sirens and drove through town trying their best to warn people with what litttle time they had as the storm was moving very quickly. The tbolt survived and was working alater in the month when they tested it next and there used to be a storm chaser video of it working sometime in May of 1991.

[siren fan]

Thanks metalstorm. Wow so Andover was so small at the time it had only one siren. Guess they couldn't set it off manually? The video is from McConnell AFB where they had several 3T22's. Wichita had Thunderbolts that you can hear in other video's.

[metalstorm]

Just pure conjecture on my part but it probably didnt occur to them to activate it from the control box at the siren. A number of write ups on that event indicated the storms were moving anywhere from 40 to 60 miles per hour. Couple that with a somewhat short lead time warning and your options are limited. Andover at the time I believe was only around 1500 people living there. A remarkable event that I believe would have taken lives even if that siren had sounded. That tornado was just a damned beast.

[siren fan]

Yes it definately was, one of the most violent tornadoes ever. Probably a blessing in desquise the town wasn't bigger at the time or more lives would have been lost. Wish I could find that video of Andover's Thunderbolt after the twister hit.

[SoundMaster 391]

Here guy's. I found the 1991 Andover KS tornado video with the Thunderbolt siren sounding off. Skip to 5:57 in the video. Also as a bonus if you skip to 6:53 in the video, you can see what looks to be a power line being thrown across in the sky.

https://youtu.be/WGpe9N3yQ9s

[4J25]

You can hear 2T22(S) and a T-Bolts at multiple points during this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvS0BEW ... AQ&index=7

[jkvernon]

Any videos with the sirens actually audible are within Sedgwick County. The video posted by Soundmaster 391 is the only video I have ever seen where you can actually hear Andover's old Thunderbolt active and that was taken several weeks after the F5 struck the town.

Today, Andover's Thunderbolt that was located behind the Andover Square shopping Center near Andover Estates (formerly Golden Spur mobile home park) has been removed (in 2010 I think) and they now have a system of 10 2001s installed at various points over the past 25 years. Their system is now activated I by WeatherWarn(?) software which supplements NWS warnings with their own data I believe.