Sirens in Iowa

[Tkjns]

Excellent video bigloudnoise, thanks for brining it back. I took an unexpected road trip through downtown Cedar Rapids yesterday and for the life of me I could not spot the Thunderbolt on top of U.S. bank, I really hope they haven't removed it already. Has anyone else been able to see it recently?

[Thunderboltlover]

Newton Iowa has three Thunderbolt sirens spread around the town and and four 2T22's along with a handful of other sirens. In Cedar Rapids as of last Spring, on the top of one of the buildings, (U.S. Bank maybe?) there was a Thunderbolt fixed next to a flag pole. It was a beautiful site to see. I've been back a few times after the floods but I wasn't at the right angle to see if the siren was still there.

Its not. It was replaced due to the new DEAC or DAEC siren system. They upgraded all the sirens. Took down some old whelens and put of new ones. The t-bolt was NOT scrapped it was given to a town who still had interest in the old 1000T. I still wish it was here though.

[Thunderboltlover]

Im gonna go down there tmrw. to see it on the way to work.

[Tkjns]

Blast that upgrade! Thank you for that information though Thunderboltlover, its good to know the siren is at least going to find a good home, although the image of it atop the Cedar Rapids urban landscape will be hard to top.

[bigloudnoise]

Sadly, as has already been mentioned, the T-Bolt HAS been removed from on top of the US Bank building in downtown Cedar Rapids. Likewise, the other two T-Bolts in CR have also been removed, from the Kirkwood Lincoln Center and the Ralston Foods plant. Thus, all of the T-Bolts in CR are now gone.

However...a little bit of a surprise to hopefully help raise the mood. While driving around the south side of CR today, something along a side street caught my eye. When I went to investigate, this is what I found:





A lone Sentry 3V8-H! It's located just south of the ADM plant, along Locust street. It's in a fenced area, so this was the closest I could get. Almost certainly it's privately-owned, considering the rest of the sirens in CR are Whelens with voice capability, as required by DAEC.

[Oldiesmann]

The siren might be there to warn anyone at the plant of an emergency. Any idea what that place is? Looks like a chemical plant of some sort.

[bigloudnoise]

I do not know exactly what is located there. As said earlier, this is located near the ADM plant, which I imagine does work with chemicals and such (although to what degree I cannot say, they mostly create corn syrup there). Whether this specific location is part of the ADM complex or not, I cannot say. I'd link to a shot on Google Earth, but there's a cloud right over that spot.

Edit: After having done some quick research, this appears to be a new ethanol plant being built by ADM.

[Thunderboltlover]

Yay! we have a sentry! bout time!

[Thunderboltlover]

I do not know exactly what is located there. As said earlier, this is located near the ADM plant, which I imagine does work with chemicals and such (although to what degree I cannot say, they mostly create corn syrup there). Whether this specific location is part of the ADM complex or not, I cannot say. I'd link to a shot on Google Earth, but there's a cloud right over that spot.

Edit: After having done some quick research, this appears to be a new ethanol plant being built by ADM.

Do you think it could be a lunch break siren? If not all my thoughts are toward a leak warning system. If I have the time ill look down there.

[Tkjns]

A lunch break siren would be an interesting notion, Iowa City has a power plant whistle sound at noon and one every week day so I could definitely see it being used along those terms. Given the siren's uniqueness in the city, I would say with some certainty it was privately installed. Does anybody know if this particular Sentry model has ever been used in industrial warning processes before?