Hello there again!
I'm back with another little retrospective/essay on the history of a county's siren system. This time I'll be discussing my home county.
I'd like to thank Doreen Birkholz from the Fayette County Emergency Management for finding me some good info.
The spreadsheet for the install dates used and a copy of the e-mail I got will be attached below.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... share_link
I will advise that some dates might be incorrect, so don't take them as the truth.
Fayette county's siren system dates back to the late 70's or early 80's, mostly likely for regular civil defense use during the cold war (seeing as the money to install the first system was provided from a Civil Defense grant), or as weather sirens since these were installed 5 years after the super outbreak of 1974, or even for the CSEPP program since Fayette county has been involved in the program since the opening of the Bluegrass Army Depot and is a neighbor of Madison county.
The legacy (or vintage) system comprised of Whelen WS-2016s at 15 locations, but a 16th was added in 1980 at Tates Creek Golf Course. No photos exist of any of the old sirens prior to 2010. The original tones are not known, since it isn't exactly clear if they had Whelen controls from the beginning.
In the late 90's and early 2000's, Fayette county added 11 sirens to their system, bringing the total to 27. These were the first wave of Modulators comprising of both 5020s and 4016s. These were also payed for by the government in the form of FEMA, with the exception of the 4016 installed at Kroger Field stadium on the University of Kentucky campus, which was payed for by the University itself. These had MCs and probably led to them being used for the rest for the system.
Replacement and upgrade of the old sirens began in 2008, when the first WS-2016 was replaced with a Modulator 5020 at Kenawood Park. The 2016s would be slowly replaced throughout the years from 2009 to the mid 2010s. Along with the replacement of the 2016s, the older mods were also replaced with Ultravoice around the same time.
Also around this time, it appears that the standard test and announcement messages for the sirens were changed to what we know today. This is the current tone set for Fayette county:
Tests: Westminster chime and a voice announcement, usually text to speech but will rarely have live voice.
Severe T-Storms: Westminster chime and a voice announcement using text to speech relayed from the NWS message issued.
Tornado Watch: Westminster chime and a voice announcement using text to speech relayed from the NWS message issued.
Tornado Warning: I haven't heard this myself, but it is most likely an alert or wail signal followed by a voice announcement using text to speech from the NWS
Other: Also haven't heard myself, but it is most likely a wail signal followed by a text to speech voice announcement describing the emergency.
Sirens are tested on the first Wednesday of the month at 10:00 AM, although in my experience they can sound anywhere from 10:00 to 10:20. They also do polling tests, probably weekly but on an unknown date and time. It's been known that they can sometimes output their polling tones on the sirens themselves. They also have done voice tests, with the voice announcement being the usual message but with a countdown from 10-1 and then 1-10.
Moving forward just a little bit, a few more sirens were needed in Lexington. These were again Modulator 4016s, and 5020s, but of the B or Modulator II variety. 3 of these sirens were installed in 2016 and 2017 respectively, bringing the system total to 30 sirens.
Now we're in the present. Turns out, the old 2016 from Jacobson park was saved or stored, and would be put to use again. However, 2 of its arrays were removed and would be upgraded with ultravoice. This siren was originally installed on top of a parking garage serving the police station in downtown in 2010, but was moved 2 blocks away to the roof of one of the courthouse buildings in 2019. It was also upgrade with Ultravoice around the time the old 2016s were getting replaced.
In around 2020-22, the voice message for tests was slightly changed by removing a line. Old test message: "Siren test. This is a test of the siren system. This is only a test. No action is required" (remember to imagine this in the weird broken up text to speech style) New text message: "Siren test. This is a test of the siren system. No action is required." So far, I believe I'm the only person to have filmed the sirens with this newer message.
In 2023, Lexington got another new siren. This would be a Modulator 4016B. This was very recently installed, only being put into place just on the 29th of January in time for the February test, but it is unlikely it sounded for the test that day.
And that's it! The history of Lexington's siren system. Before you go, I'd like to clarify some things.
Firstly, if you look at any maps of the system, you'll notice that all of them except for downtown are installed in parks (major parks only to be correct). This is probably just normal (but unique) since the main purpose of the sirens that has been stated is to warn people outdoors only. Not that it really matters anyway since you can barely hear the voice messages in the parks anyway.
Secondly, a lot of people (including the EMA employee I got an e-mail from) have confused the legacy system to be DSAs instead of WS-2016s, especially on videos of the single one left in downtown. I can confirm that the old system was 2016s since 2000 series has those angular bits where the drivers are held.
That's about all I have to say, thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them and I'll answer them to the best of my ability.