New sirens being installed in St. Louis counnty

[bradhig]

We saw another one at Bellefontaine Rd and Redman Ave right in front of Twillman school. Like the kids in school need a siren to warn them when the office has a weather radio.

[uncommonsense]

The new system is now working.

ST. LOUIS (AP) ? St. Louis County has accelerated plans for dozens of new, high-tech, warning sirens in the wake of recent storms.

The St. Louis County Municipal League told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch that county officials turned on 60 of the new sirens Friday. The others will be operating within several weeks.

Tim Fischesser, executive director of the Municipal League, said the recent storms in Missouri prompted safety officials to advance the date that the sirens were expected to come online.

The new sirens have a "beehive"-type speaker system that point in every direction, replacing older sirens that would rotate. The new sirens will also eventually be able to give voice messages, and will be better adaptable to new technology. There are still 188 sirens working from the older system.

Source: Springfield News-Leader (funny I saw it there and not in St. Louis media, but what do I know?). Link: http://www.news-leader.com/article/2011 ... RONTPAGE|s[/quote]

[bradhig]

I heard that this morning on the radio they were speeding up the process of installing the new ones and turned some on. We saw another new siren at Redman Rd and 367 near the old bank.

[bradhig]

the siren on Redman Rd near 367 still had plastic wrap on the bottom of the control box.

[FedTB]

I didn't hear any new sirens when I was at work last Wednesday afternoon and early evening when St. Louis County went under 3 seperate Tornado Warnings.

I think it's a great idea to "turn on" those new sirens that are in place, because if they're up and ready to go, and since it IS tornado season here in the St. Louis area, why not turn them on? They could make a difference between life and death!

Can you imagine the negative publicity if there was another major tornado here and people died because "the brand new siren down the street" didn't activate because the officials wanted to wait until August to place all of the new sirens on line at one time after the system was complete?

[uncommonsense]

Sorry to bump an [really] old thread.

12 more 2910s have been ordered to fill dead spots:

http://www.kmov.com/news/mobile/St-Loui ... 49115.html

[FedTB]

Nice to know where 4 out of the 12 will be installed. Hopefully we'll find out the locations of the 8 other ones soon.

[coppercarl]

192dB?? I'm thinking maybe 129.

Glad to know that they care enough out there to check these things and make sure that the areas that need it, have a sirens.

[uncommonsense]

Well, I found a map the county maintains with locations of the sirens. They have a comments section on each unit and, using this, I was able to identify 10 of the 12 new sirens that have been ordered (via serendipitous clicking around!). I have yet to be able to find the other 2. It seems not all the new units are 2910s. But, as you'll see below, it also seems the county has some work to do on existing units!

New units:

*On top of County Courts Bldg in Clayton: 2906
*Dellwood Park in Dellwood: 2910
*Washington and Dunn in Florissant: 2910
*Florissant Police Department in Florissant: 2906
*Riverside Drive at Larkin Williams in Fenton: 2906
*Appalachian Trail between Cedar Creek Road in Chesterfield: 2910
*Hanley and Natural Bridge in North County: 2910
*Ferguson Middle School in Ferguson: 2910
*St. Ann City Hall in St. Ann: 2910
*McKibbon and St. Charles Rock Road in St. John: 2010


The map I found also shows status of sirens. Unfortunately, it seems like the 2910s are lightning magnets!!! As of right now:

The 2910 at the Kirkwood Community Center has been struck by lightning and is operating at 40% power.

The 2910 at Edison and Bell in Chesterfield has been struck by lightning and is operating at 75% power

The 2910 at Balance and Betsy Ross in unincorporated St. Louis County was struck by lightning and is operating at 80% power.

The 2910 at the Police Academy (1266 Sutter) in Wellston is broken as it was "destroyed by lightning"

The 2910 at Neosho and Osage in Pacific is broken due to "wind damage."

Map: http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewe ... a74019b3f4

[FedTB]

Thanks for posting this info.! I'll have to check that website as well.

It's interesting that 7 out of 10 of the new sirens are in the northern part of the county.

I would think that the destroyed units would be replaced soon as well. I realize that these things are tall but it sure must make the EMA officials a little ticked that so many have been struck by lightning already!