The Siren Board

Last night I had a meeting with our new EMA director and he mentioned that the City of Delaware added to their system within the past couple weeks. They had a system of 6 2001DCs installed in 1997 so it made sense to install a 2001-130 on the south end of town where all the growth has occurred.



It's located right behind the Delaware Center for Older Adults (dumb name) off of Cheshire Rd. near the roundabout.



Zoomed in a little.



Controls.

As far as my meeting went, we covered quite a bit and it really seemed like me and Brian Gallagher at the EMA were totally on the same page on putting in a county-wide system. We talked about systems that other cities had and the problems that they've seen, mainly Franklin County and Dublin and also Delaware like how the county pays $1,200 per siren for all 151 in the county and how Dublin just about has a whole extra siren stored for parts (as well as extra housings for their 2750s, 2805s, and 2905s). He's meeting with commissioners Friday to tell them what he would like to see and what all I told him.
Things are looking really really good, we're not going with any electronic sirens whatsoever here, but I'm not going to spill the beans just yet because I want to avoid any confrontation with any other vendors that may read anything on this board. I will tell you that we're not gonna need as many sirens as initially planned and they're actually gonna sound decent. Some will also be hooked up to backup generators already installed at different county-owned buildings. It's really looking good!

Also, here's the only siren that my township has, a Fedelcode Model 5, and it's been disconnected.

Wow, that model 5 looks really huge. Somebody should try to get it.

Glad to see that Delaware added a siren. The Cheshire Road area has completely changed with all the new development. Delaware's city limits go much further south than people think. They are trying to annex much of Berlin Township. That area needed siren coverage.

Nice picture of the Model 5 in Orange Township. Berlin Township still has their old Model 5 up and I believe it still is connected.

Thanks for the info on a county-wide siren system. I think a lot of people have been waiting for them to stop dragging their feet. It sounded recently like the County Commissioners recently weren't talking about it, which had me worried.

I just wonder how much of the rural parts of the county they plan to cover? I think even with a large siren in each township, it may be difficult to cover the entire county. I guess you could put a siren at each township hall and have decent coverage. I don't know, I'll be interested to see what happens.

That Model 5 IS huge. Great pictures, as well.

Before I met with Brian, I was under the impression that he didn't like the idea of having sirens at all. He actually emailed me out of the blue a couple weeks ago asking if I'd be able to stop by his office sometime this summer. I work 40+ hours a week during the summer so we had to set up a meeting in the evening for earlier this week. I only planned on staying for about an hour but ended up staying for two, talking sirens pretty much the whole time.

When I met with him, it seemed like he had totally switched his position on sirens and now sees value to them.
We basically talked about what all goes into siren installation (location is a little more complicated than I thought) like how you can't install sirens in places that might effect bird migration .

We talked about how there's an optimum frequency that siren companies are now trying to shoot for to make them carry further and penetrate better (somewhere between 500 and 600hz I think). That was his biggest concern because it really effects how many sirens we would need, the total cost, and where they'd be located. I told him what I knew and tried to do a little research. van_nuke_pe was really helpful with this part and I forwarded what he told me to Brian.

There are several directions we may be going in from here. In the meeting with the commissioners, they could either decide to put it on the November ballot or not. If they don't, the residents of Delaware County, including myself, could petition to have it added. If it passes, there will be a slight tax added to each resident of Delaware County which would be like $6.00 for someone who owns a $100,000 home. The average home in Delaware County costs like $250,000 so it would be like $18.00 or whatever per home for 3 years or so. If it doesn't pass, Brian said they'd try to "nickel and dime" a system together. So far, Orange Township where I live is the only township that has come forward and said that they'd put in their own system if the county commissioners decide against it.

At this point, I'm getting sirens where I live no matter what direction the county goes in which is fine with me though I'd rather see us go with a county-wide system.

Just for reference, here's what my county already had in place
Midland WR-300 weather radios at all the schools, hospitals, nursing homes, ect.
Reverse911 which DOES work when it's set up right (which it is now).
ThunderWarn which sends a text message for weather warnings, evacuations, ect.

We're also keeping the following sirens in the system.
Delaware's 7 2001s
Sunbury's Whelen Vortex
and Galena's Whelen WPS-2802.

If you haven't caught on yet, I'm pretty friggin excited that the county seems to be heading in the right direction with this.

I think I've read articles about Genoa Township also being in favor of sirens.

I'm interested to see what type of sirens they decide on. Sounded to me like ASC met the earlier description you gave, but then again Federal Signal seems to dominate in this area. And you said no electronic so it isn't Whelen.

Problem is, in this economy, a levy/tax increase, even a minor one, might be a tough sell.

Fletch wrote:I think I've read articles about Genoa Township also being in favor of sirens.

I'm interested to see what type of sirens they decide on. Sounded to me like ASC met the earlier description you gave, but then again Federal Signal seems to dominate in this area. And you said no electronic so it isn't Whelen.

Problem is, in this economy, a levy/tax increase, even a minor one, might be a tough sell.

Whenever our local government wants something they implement a .01 SPLOST. Seems to be pretty effective, they repaved all the streets in town.

A 1% tax? You'd have to be a pretty big town to be able to get that much with just a 1% tax.

It's countywide.

SirenMadness wrote:That Model 5 IS huge. Great pictures, as well.

Do you like trains, just asking, I notice your GE Dash 9-44CW, for Canadian Pacific.
BOT:
I wish I could have that model 5...