Anyways, up until now it seems the only Thunderbolts known to exist in Canada were the 1003s at the Suncor refinery in Sarnia, and the one in Stettler, Alberta (which, unfortunately, appears to have been removed). However, I was doing some research for a mapping project I'm working on, and I stumbled across a working Thunderbolt 1003 in the small town of Wakaw, Saskatchewan.
- WakawTbolt2.png (487.86 KiB) Viewed 2391 times
The siren is mounted behind the fire hall on 118 Main Street. It appears to have "WFD" written on the side of the projector horn in red.
Unfortunately, it appears that this siren does not sound in hi-lo or pulse. According to a news release from the town's website:
"Emergency personnel will set off and continuously run the Siren in the case of an EMO Situation in order to alert the general public to an impending emergency situation. Examples of EMO events include Severe & Dangerous Weather, Mass Casualty Situations, Public Threat, Evacuation Orders, etc."
I'm assuming they're referring to a steady/Alert signal? It's also used as a backup call signal for the volunteer firefighters:
"...If, for any reason, not enough volunteers respond initially [to pagers] the siren will run one round at a time to call for more volunteers. It will repeat until enough volunteers have responded to the call."
By "one round at a time", I'm thinking they're referring to a growl or short Alert function.
Although I'm obviously happy to see another working Thunderbolt in Canada, I'm a bit confused as to why a town the size of Wakaw would go with a siren as powerful as the T-bolt, considering that most towns of similar size would use a Model 2 or 5, or the Sterling/Darley equivalents. Perhaps they were trying to give coverage to surrounding farms?
