Oregon's Thunderbolt is down! They're taking them all!

[turtlbrdr]

This is roughly my reaction from yesterday.

Back in May I mounted an expedition to find out what happened to Oregon Wisconsin's Allertor. At that time the public works manager told me that Oregon's Thunderbolt 1003 was staying.

So you can imagine my confusion and shock when I checked up on it yesterday and found this:


Alongside of the road was the fallen Thunderbolt sitting under the new FS 508.

I mentioned last week (in the mystery sirens pages) that I found that a Siratone siren in Madison was replaced sometime in the last couple of weeks; I knew that Madison was undergoing an upgrade, but I had no idea how fast they'd be moving. On Thursday, I was going to work and found that McFarland's Allertor was gone. I immediately sent out a quick email to the Dane County EMA requesting information on which sirens they're replacing, to which I never received a reply. Yesterday I sent a full length email to them including several specific sirens that I want to know the fates of including: the H.O.R Super Sirex onto of the EMA's own building and the Pref+Penetrators scattered around the county. This email has gone unanswered as well.

I left early yesterday (I had work late into the evening) to go up into Madison. I was going to talk to my grandparents about it as they usually like hearing about something like this, and my grandma watches the newspaper, possibly somethings been posted in it. On a mere whim I stopped by the Thunderbolt in Oregon.

I can tell you from experience that these things are BIG, you never really can get a scale from when they're up on a pole. I hurriedly took pictures, and now that I look at them I don't think I got many good ones, but I plan to take more today when I can get out there. Luckily, I think it's safe until at least Monday.

I immediately placed a call to the local public works director who, to his credit, was the only one I got a call or an email back from yesterday. I don't believe I mentioned it last time, but I don't think he has much of an idea of what's going on with these sirens, and I'm suspecting he knows even less than I thought following yesterday. It almost seems he had the same warning that I did about the replacement. But he was able to confirm, at least this, Oregon does not have possession of the siren.

As soon as I found it on the ground, without workers around, I started working out ahead with the mindset that I want to obtain this siren. At this point I've tried finding out A) Who owns it and B) Are they willing to let me have it.

Mark (the public works director) gave me the first good clue to start looking; either Hill Electric or the County has possession over it. Anyone that read my post about Oregon's Allertor may remember that Hill Electric was the one who replaced and took that one. I placed two calls there yesterday, the first one the receptionist transferred me to the voicemail of someone named Jim, who I left a message with my information and my intentions. I placed a second call just before work on the off-chance he might have been there and got someone who (may have) answered my questions, he didn't seem 100% sure on somethings, most notably who owns the thunderbolt. However, he explained to me

• Jim was out for the rest of the day
  He would be back on Monday
  The county likely had possession of it as...
  He did not think Hill electric was not being contracted to take them away
  There are a large number of replacements that they have been contracted for

Mark was able to give me the email of a Dave in the County Works that is likely the Overseer of the Siren replacements. Alongside my calls to Hill Electric I sent him an Email describing my intentions. I have yet to receive a reply

So this is where I sit.

I would love to have this siren be my first in my collection as you can see in my Youtube video (4 months ago) it still worked beautifully:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDZhZSI7aeM
Granted they dinged the blower box when they must have dropped it

I don't think the county would have much interest in this siren except for scrap value (it seems they're replacing Thunderbolts), does anyone have a guess what this might be at? And does anyone know how much the top part (horn, rotator) and the blower setup weigh?

I'll keep you guys posted to this. I've asked the Dane County EMA to email back a list of the ones they're replacing as indexed to their own Siren map that they have on their page; as soon as I get this I'll release a new map with the updated placements.

As for as any watchers in the area, keep posted. I would get out and get any recordings of older model sirens as soon as you can, they may not be there next year.

Collectors, keep apprised of the situation, depending on what they're doing with these you may be able to get a hold of the old units coming down (I'll be posting details of my acquisition if I get it). I am worried about the two kinds of sirens I mentioned earlier, the Super Sirex and the Perf+Penetrators. I would love to preserve one of both examples but I'm going to have my hands full with this Thunderbolt if I get it.

Thank you for reading

[Mark N]

One of my favorite thunderbolt videos.
It doesn't look refurbished, so is say a couple hundred to a thousand (don't take my word for it) in value. Did they always use the alert function? I gotta imagine they didn't at one point or another, so the solenoids shouldn't be in terrible shape (I hope). Good luck on getting it, wish you the best!

[ACAPenetrator50]

Here's a thread posted not too far back about the decommission schedule for Madison: https://airraidsirens.com/forums/viewto ... hilit=Dane

However, the link that gave a map of the decommissions and the replacements is dead.

[Stormsetter4]

700 tops for that siren.

[DJ2226]

I might make a map of their entire system in Google Maps Engine. I did one of the Perf+Penetrators and found that one was replaced with most likely T-128s judging by the map imagery.

[Archon]

When Posting something like this It would help that the City and State be but in the header I though you were talking about the state of Oregon and almost didn't read the story

[coastalsyrolover]

When Posting something like this It would help that the City and State be but in the header I though you were talking about the state of Oregon and almost didn't read the story

Whats wrong with the state of oregon?

[FSThunderboltfan1000]

When Posting something like this It would help that the City and State be but in the header I though you were talking about the state of Oregon and almost didn't read the story

Whats wrong with the state of oregon?

Nothing is wrong with the state of Oregon, he just does not care if they take their thunderbolts down or not. But this is Oregon WI, and it has to do with Wisconsin so he would be interested in this topic.

[TboltTX1]

Good luck in your efforts to obtain this siren, it took a lot of cold calling and perseverance to get mine. Keep at it and hopefully you will get the answer you're looking for.

[turtlbrdr]

An update guys:

I had no emails or calls back when it was time for me to go into work today, so I gave another call to Hill Electric for Jim (at this point the only person's phone number that I had) and was able to get his cell. I gave him a quick call before I had to go into work and for once I can finally say I've spoken to someone who knows something about sirens!

Jim and I talked for about 15 minutes before I had to run into work and barely make my cutoff, and everything he said was pretty good info but some for bad or worse.

First the bad news:
The county still owns the siren, and Hill electric is being contacted to replace around 20 units (20 more next year, he added), and then destroy them. This is my most feared scenario, they aren't being preserved, they aren't being sold off to other communities, just destroyed.

Sirens that are being replaced are being done so because of the scarcity of replacement parts, not due to wanting battery backup for the system (though I'm sure that does carry incentive as well) as I first thought.

The Good news:
I (or We, if other collectors are listening) have a decent chance of obtaining these sirens. Jim said that the county commissioner doesn't have anything against them going to collectors. However, there is one caveat, they can't be operable. Apparently, this has been an issue. As to what this means -beyond not being able to sound them- I don't know. I don't know if it means not being able to obtain the control boxes, having motors removed, or parts fused.

I don't have any plans to sound them around here, if anything the only place I would do it is at the siren meetup if I ever got the chance, or if I was able to work out with the county as to have it become an official warning siren (or if my town was okay with it, but I think the county overrules them in this circumstance). It'd would take a miracle for me as I don't think I have the adequate power supply to run the thing.

However Dave the county commissioner is out of town for the next two weeks so in that time I will not be able to take possession of the siren or work out what the per Diem rules of my (our) collection(s) must be.

The Special Sirens:
Jim also was able to answer that he did not think any of the penetrators have been touched as of yet (I have a question about them below), and the H.O.R Super Sirex on top of the Madison EMA building was safe for now as well; in addition to the one on top of Madison East High School, which he didn't remember the model of, but I know as a Thunderbolt.

Calling Collectors
I explained to Jim that there may be others interested in these sirens as well and as such: Jim is asking me to comprise an email of the ones that I am interested in, I plan to put in my email tonight with two that I know of. If anybody out there is interested in grabbing an older Madison siren, (not current era), even omni-directionals (are not safe as I learned, see below), let me know via this thread, I will be compiling a list of them and sending them in later this week. Keep in mind that around 20 were being replaced this year and most (if not all) are done, the only ones left are those done in the last week, the others have been destroyed already. I don't know which ones are already gone entirely, I only know of 4, but I will be asking Jim for a list of what's down and destroyed and which are down.

However, remember what I said earlier, anther 20 are schedule for next year as well and may very well be open to collection possibilities.

Omni-directionals are not safe here
I found out tonight that Brooklyn's 3T22 is one of the ones that is in this year's upgrade. My brother mentioned seeing "one on the ground" as he went to work as a volunteer firefighter. And sure enough:

When this first started, I thought omni-directionals were safe since federal really doesn't have a replacement for the xT22's available. "Maybe we'd get Sentrys" I thought, I was wrong on both accounts. Sitting up in Brooklyn now is a brand new FS 2001. I'm not going to mince words here, out of every siren in the world (minus ATI's, but really did that need saying?), I hate no siren more than the 2001. And now I have to stare at one everyday. I loved the 3T22 here, they are pretty much tied with Thunderbolts and the Mobil Directo for my favorite sounding sirens of all time, they have a certain melodic tone that I adore. And now I have this thing in my village when the 3T22 worked spectacularly well (we certainly found out this year, both from my video and the tornado's that struck the are a couple months after that).

There's a couple of close-up shakily taken photos in that collection from tonight as well, if you guys want to look at them. However, at 8:30 the light was scarce and I was only able to get those. Nothing really extraordinary of the 3T22 or the demon that sits on top of the old pole. (and I'm fairly certain someone in a dodge van thinks I've killed someone out there).

The Brooklyn 3T22 is now my main target, as this is the closest that I have available to me, and it is my town's siren. It is one of the two I will be asking for specifically.

My Questions
I've got a couple of questions for your guys if you can help me out:
1: Were the Pref+Penetrator's battery back up?
1b: Are their parts available?
2: How much does the 3T22 weigh? (I was able to nudge it around pretty easily and make it shake, but I can do the same thing to my brother's car and I can't lift that)
3: What kind of blower does this Thunderbolt have? This may be a trick question without possible answer, I tried to find the builder's plate, but I could not find one anywhere. The blower does bear the marking 4MC (I added additional pictures of the Thunderbolt to my photobucket, including a closeup of that marking)
3b: Where would the builder's spec sheet be for the Thunderbolt? I always though it was on the back of the head.

Final words
I'm writing my letter to Jim as I type this as well. I plan on asking him several questions, about what is going on. I'm hopefully going to have a full list of things to share tomorrow night as well. Most importantly, I hope to have a list of units that are replace and destroyed, replaced and on the ground, awaiting replacement, and on next year's list.


It feels good to finally get in contact with someone. Honestly, Jim almost sounds a little relieved that some fate may await these things other than what they have to do to them. I imagine it's hard to destroy something that stood the test of time and only got a little rusty.

Have a good night guy's more tomorrow hopefully!