Public Safety - Does your siren work? or...

[JSPhoto]

Brought up by Channel 13 WTHR after the recent outbreak of tornados was the fact that most of the state ISN"T covered by Civil Defence sirens meaning most of the state isn't covered for tornado warnings. In fact the part of the county I live in is one of three townships that have no sirens at all and we were hit by a tornado two years ago and just missed twice this year.
Marion County (Indianapolis) has small areas that are not covered, but the 5 surrounding counties have 184,000 people not able to hear any sirens. The county just south of us has a total of seven sirens to cover 413 square miles.

So what about you? Can you hear your siren if it goes off?

The worst part of this is no one knows who is responsible, the state or the county!

JS

[mjs1973]

I live in a small town of about 3000 and I have no problem hearing the sirens. The city put in all new sirens a few years back and it has greatly improved the ability to hear them. They about blow you out of your car if they go off while sitting at a stop sign next to one of them. I have one a couple blocks from my house. When I hear them go off, my first instict is to grab my camera instead of heading to the basement. Kinda defeats the purpose of the siren tho.

[adina]

Ours works, and we can hear it. We're probably about 4 blocks from it. It goes off every day at noon, everytime there's a fire, tornados, and I think one other thing. They have a different pattern for each one. Tornado siren just stays on, the noon one is one shorter whistle, off the top of my head, I can't remember the fire one.

[mjs1973]

Ours does the same thing Adina. For the fire, it's an up and down pattern.

[zrfraser]

We have a siren system at the college that I attend, and I only live a mile from that but you can't hear it then. Th ebad thing is that the siren starts when the danger is gone.

[swmdrayfan]

Not only can I hear it, but so can the dogs.....what a howl .
John

[walterick]

When I hear them go off, my first instict is to grab my camera instead of heading to the basement. Kinda defeats the purpose of the siren tho.

LOL Michael! That made me laugh. Just like a photographer to grab his camera and run into the storm when everyone is running out!

You remind me of an article a read in Arizona Highways this month about landscape photographers and how they chase storms to get the best shots.

Sirens, you know I haven't put a thought into those in years. Major US cities don't have them, I don't think. And I've been in living in San Francisco, DC and Phoenix for the last 6 years or so. In fact, I haven't even heard one since I last visited the small beach resort my family goes to in Delaware.

I wonder how they plan on alerting people around here?

Rick