History of the Hoover Appliances HOR and others
Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2014 6:57 pm
Wanting to see if I could get some more in-depth info of a neighboring city's (North Canton, Ohio) CD and old sirens, I've struck some luck.
Here is what I could grab at this moment while observing and reading through snippets of public archived newspapers while in a tired mood, so bear with me.
From the start, the village of North Canton had only a single fire siren in use, likely not for civil defense purposes yet. A known date has not been discovered of when they purchased this fire siren. It would make sense that it would be a Sterling M*10 that they still have. The siren was originally mounted on top of the roof of village hall (assuming now the municipal city hall). Quite a few more articles mention the fire siren, but will not further mention it.
In 1957, it was mentioned that the city received two additional fire sirens, as part of a exclusive system it appears. I don't know what model these were, and sure enough at the articles' aforementioned locations they are long gone. The remaining Sterling is 8/16 port and is still used. Perhaps it was some gnarly Sterling fire system.
In the same year CD workers applied for civil defense matching funds, allowing them to purchase a bigger siren, only intended for air raid/CD purposes only. They bought the infamous HOR SuperSirex, and interestingly enough, was originally painted yellow (versus the current color state while its rotting up on a roof). I have no clue what chopper port ratio this one has. This appears to have been the then-village's only siren as part of a network, though I recall correctly from browsing, there was mentioning for wanting additional sirens it looks like. I have no idea about the later either, as pretty much the only remains are the SuperSirex. It also looks like they originally wanted it on the village hall too, but later wanted it higher up.
The SuperSirex did rotate and was a 10HP unit, but the unit itself would not be erected until 1960, having sitting in the garages in crates. It would then be put up on the Hoover Appliances Building, of which where it still stands but silent. This was done as a vantage point for everyone in the village and there some to hear.
The drills for the siren would be 1 minute Alert, silence for 1 minute, and then 1 minute "warbling" (otherwise known as attack/wail).
Later on in 1975, the city officials realized that there was a need for a tornado plan. This would then call for testing of the siren as part of this "tornado alert plan" and what appears to have been when they set the standard First Monday of the Month at Noon. This testing however said to last three minutes (the police department page lists 1 minute, though the first and last time I was there they tested three minutes...go figure). What looks like before that were random conducted drills, announced in newspaper.
It appeared that the siren was double purpose siren and was now also a tornado siren, as they still referred to it as an air-raid siren.
I'm not sure what happened after that. This is where the research stops abruptly. I'm not sure when they starting phasing out this system, or if more sirens were added after the HOR. What I can tell you is what the Police Department told me, "As far as I can recall, sirens were in place for civil defense (like during the cold war era). Starting in 1998, they have seen continuous functional upgrades." This probably when they transitioned to a updated system (which again, little info on too, other than that originally there where two (possibly three?) WPS-4000 series sirens, a Hornet, the existing Sterling*M10, and a 2001-SRN?) I have yet to check on the later on determining of its age. Of course for some strange reason the city replaced those 4000s in favor of 2001-130s.
There are some attached cropped out articles. Please adjust your page zoom size accordingly. All credit given to: Ohio Memory and contributors.
Of course, you are welcomed to search for more about via the website http://www.ohiomemory.com. There are quite a lot of scanned papers, but chronologically are unsorted making it difficult. I'm sure there's more I'm missing, but this is my basic understanding. It may seem still broken history, but I'm still going after more.
That is what I can sum up for now.
Here is what I could grab at this moment while observing and reading through snippets of public archived newspapers while in a tired mood, so bear with me.
From the start, the village of North Canton had only a single fire siren in use, likely not for civil defense purposes yet. A known date has not been discovered of when they purchased this fire siren. It would make sense that it would be a Sterling M*10 that they still have. The siren was originally mounted on top of the roof of village hall (assuming now the municipal city hall). Quite a few more articles mention the fire siren, but will not further mention it.
In 1957, it was mentioned that the city received two additional fire sirens, as part of a exclusive system it appears. I don't know what model these were, and sure enough at the articles' aforementioned locations they are long gone. The remaining Sterling is 8/16 port and is still used. Perhaps it was some gnarly Sterling fire system.
In the same year CD workers applied for civil defense matching funds, allowing them to purchase a bigger siren, only intended for air raid/CD purposes only. They bought the infamous HOR SuperSirex, and interestingly enough, was originally painted yellow (versus the current color state while its rotting up on a roof). I have no clue what chopper port ratio this one has. This appears to have been the then-village's only siren as part of a network, though I recall correctly from browsing, there was mentioning for wanting additional sirens it looks like. I have no idea about the later either, as pretty much the only remains are the SuperSirex. It also looks like they originally wanted it on the village hall too, but later wanted it higher up.
The SuperSirex did rotate and was a 10HP unit, but the unit itself would not be erected until 1960, having sitting in the garages in crates. It would then be put up on the Hoover Appliances Building, of which where it still stands but silent. This was done as a vantage point for everyone in the village and there some to hear.
The drills for the siren would be 1 minute Alert, silence for 1 minute, and then 1 minute "warbling" (otherwise known as attack/wail).
Later on in 1975, the city officials realized that there was a need for a tornado plan. This would then call for testing of the siren as part of this "tornado alert plan" and what appears to have been when they set the standard First Monday of the Month at Noon. This testing however said to last three minutes (the police department page lists 1 minute, though the first and last time I was there they tested three minutes...go figure). What looks like before that were random conducted drills, announced in newspaper.
It appeared that the siren was double purpose siren and was now also a tornado siren, as they still referred to it as an air-raid siren.
I'm not sure what happened after that. This is where the research stops abruptly. I'm not sure when they starting phasing out this system, or if more sirens were added after the HOR. What I can tell you is what the Police Department told me, "As far as I can recall, sirens were in place for civil defense (like during the cold war era). Starting in 1998, they have seen continuous functional upgrades." This probably when they transitioned to a updated system (which again, little info on too, other than that originally there where two (possibly three?) WPS-4000 series sirens, a Hornet, the existing Sterling*M10, and a 2001-SRN?) I have yet to check on the later on determining of its age. Of course for some strange reason the city replaced those 4000s in favor of 2001-130s.
There are some attached cropped out articles. Please adjust your page zoom size accordingly. All credit given to: Ohio Memory and contributors.
Of course, you are welcomed to search for more about via the website http://www.ohiomemory.com. There are quite a lot of scanned papers, but chronologically are unsorted making it difficult. I'm sure there's more I'm missing, but this is my basic understanding. It may seem still broken history, but I'm still going after more.
That is what I can sum up for now.