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July 24, 2012 By Sarah Rich
Often when we hear a siren, we think danger is afoot: Some may feel the need to find more information, others may begin to panic.
But will sirens eventually be silenced? As notification technology advances and existing siren technology ages, some emergency managers and local governments are asking themselves if sirens are a technology of the past.
One place where that conversation is occurring is in the coastal community of Tillamook County, west of Portland, Ore. City, county and state officials in the area gathered in July to discuss the future of the 32 tsunami sirens located in the county. The sirens are currently functional, but were installed more than a decade ago — and the equipment originated from a decommissioned nuclear power plant, said Gordon McCraw, Tillamook’s emergency manager.
McCraw said the sirens — which connect back to a 911 center via radio — are so outdated that the county can no longer get parts for them when equipment needs to be replaced. Soon, the sirens will be inoperable.
Public policy changes also are making the situation more urgent. Starting Jan. 1, 2013, the FCC is requiring all public safety and “business industrial” land mobile radio systems that are operating in the 150 to 512 MHz radio band to stop using 25 kHz channels and switch to 12.5 kHz “narrowband” channels. According to the FCC, if radio systems do not make the switch by the new year, they will be in violation of the new rules and subject to penalties.
The sirens in Tillamook currently operate using wideband radio, which will not meet the new narrowbanding requirement — making the sirens soon obsolete.
“We would have to redo the whole guts of the thing to support a system we can no longer get parts for, so it doesn’t make economic or common sense to try to keep that system going,” McCraw said about the existing sirens.
Tillamook County public safety stakeholders unanimously decided they would like to start a phase-out process for the existing sirens, although a formal migration plan hasn’t been put in place yet.
In any case, Tillamook is taking this planning opportunity to reassess if investing heavily in sirens is the best use of resources.
Some citizens living in regions that are vulnerable to severe natural disasters may take sirens too lightly. Some residents living in Joplin, Mo., didn’t take the area’s tornado sirens too seriously when an EF5 tornado — topping the scale for wind speeds — ravaged the city in 2011.
Joplin/Jasper County Emergency Management Director Keith Stammer sounded the sirens twice, when traditionally, they are only sounded once. But even after two separate siren warnings, some residents were still found in areas that could have put them in the line of danger.
In connection with aftermath of the wreckage created from tornadoes that swept through Alabama last year, Gov. Robert Bentley told Emergency Management magazine (a sister publication of Government Technology) that he didn’t feel the sirens in the state worked well nor were beneficial to the residents. Bentley thought people probably weren’t paying attention to the sirens. However, TV and radio did well with helping citizens respond to the tornadoes.
Not everyone is ready to ditch tsunami sirens. San Diego County, Calif., for one, continues to test and use tsunami sirens. West Coast tsunami sirens were activated during the massive March 2011 tsunami that occurred near Japan, and are credited with keeping people away from the Pacific coastline. Tillamook County activated its sirens in response to the Japan tsunami too.
The county also notifies residents via 911 emergency notifications — whether it be from SMS, email or voice message. McCraw said he believes these personal messages are more efficient than sirens.
Sirens, in turn, should serve another purpose.
“What we know now is the tsunami sirens should tell you to turn on the TV or radio to see what’s going on,” he said.
Conversation starter: Are sirens used for alerting natural disasters a technology of the past? Share your comments below in the comment section.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Sirens-A-Dying-Technology-.html
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Very intersting topic, I am fighting this same battle as I type. Personally, I think sirens are the utlimate "rely on this" tool to notify citizens. They only rely two things..power to run the siren and a method to activate it. Just yesterday I got a text message sent to two phones at the same time, one came in a few seconds, the other came 6 hours later. I think the problem is sirens have not kept up with the building boom. Houses and buildings are bigger, built in higher density, and are more soundproof, while current siren systems have not been expanded, or in most cases left to fail and not be maintained due to either buget issues, or lack of oversight. On another note, I believe NRC is fighting it's own battles with siren notifications at nuclear facilities, battery backup requirements, and what is a truely feasible "backup approach" if a siren fails during an emergency.
As I read this, I have to think about my 35 plus years with the fire service. Then I have to think about the cost to maintain these sirens. You hear all the talk about mass notifications today. However, there is one point that is being missed. Not everyone today owns a wireless device. Not everyone has those devices with them all the time. You may have those devices on vibrate for many reasons and miss the notification. as painful as it financially is, I believe that your making a huge mistake to drop any wide area sound notification on an emergency notification. Do you always sleep with your cell phone near you? I don't and I am on call 24/7 for calls from my company for communications problems from public safety and federal agencies.
I was vacationing in Seward Alaska last summer and I wouldn't have known about the tsunami warning one night if it hadn't been for the sirens. My cell was off since I wasn't expecting any calls from CT where I live, and I was in bed. It turned out to be a false alarm, but I am glad they had sirens. What about if you're in the shower, or taking a long soak in the tub, or in your pool and you left your cell inside, etc., etc. Sirens will always be needed.
I grew up with Sirens. When I hear them I know a flood is coming. What I then do is my responsibility. At least I was notified. I don't answer email or text messages when I'm asleep, and after 11:00 p.m. I don't answer the phone either. However, when wake you from a dead sleep to the blare of the sirens it only means on thing... Get to high ground and do it fast. My phone ringing at 3 a.m. will not give me the same feeling of dire emergency as the resounding blare of the sirens. Besides when the power goes out my VOIP and internet goes dead. What good is email and robo-calls when I have no power? In such situations, a low tech siren could be all that stands between me making it to high ground or being swept away in a flood.
They need to upgrade the sirens and keep them. People know to take cover when a tornado is emminent or when other disasters are here in Alabama and other states when they hear a siren. Regretfully they do not use sirens in many states besause of the lame excuses written above. I wish they would re-install them, update them and maintains them. I say, KEEP the sirens. Martha
Our community's siren system (13 sirens for 33 sq mi), installed in 2001, was designed to alert those OUTSIDE for all hazards. The desired action is for those hearing the siren to tune into a local TV/radio station or listen to the NOAA All-Hazards Warning Radio to find out what threat is imminent. None of the alerting systems is a "one size fits all" solution. The solution is a multi-faceted system of different alerting methods to accomodate those who do not carry wireless devices, those who stay inside all the time, those who are mobile, etc. While I believe that sirens will eventually become obsolete, they are not there yet.
I agree that it isn't the time to get rid of sirens. There are still many individuals who have not embraced mobile technology as local governments are hoping. I also agree with an earlier comment that sirens have not kept up with urban sprawl. I live in a housing complex on the edge of our town and I can barely hear the sirens in our town if the wind is just right. I heavily rely on my weather radio at home for emergencies. I also don't sleep with my cell phone at my side. There are reasons to keep reliable older technologies that can get a mass message out more effectively than emerging technology.
Not everyone has (or wants) wireless connection all the time, especially in bed or out in the garden. Many cannot afford them, and these would be the most at risk without the sirens to warn them. We must keep systems like this to help warn of dangers. The people who ignore the sirens in Joplin probably would be the same who would ignore the warning message on the radio.
Replace the old stuff with modern Kenwood, ICOM or DMR2 radios, attach an embedded computer, spend a long weekend writing code, and have a nice day. This is not rocket science, and with only one bit to send to the remote sirens, data communications rates can be atrocious...;) Should be <1$M for 32 siren controllers installed; small pickings in the life-safety business. Unless you need a helicopter for install, it can't cost more than that with an honest vendor.
This is great topic for a lot of us in Emergency Management seems to be a struggle for everyday funding and maintenance cost for these types of systems because they are not cheap. What is interesting to take away from the articles that are condemning these so called antiquated systems should not be the few individuals that didn't adhere to the warning but the masses that did. In this day in time there will always be individuals that ignore warnings of all kinds text, phone, EAS, Cable Override, and yes sirens but it is our responsibility to attempt notification in as many ways as we can to as many as we can. Yes sirens and 24 hour activation points are a paramount part of that process. What would be helpful is to rid these systems of proprietary configurations and have them integrate into other mass notification devises through inexpensive interfacing or standard protocols like P25 for radios as an example. I know it sounds like I'm just harping but many of us in Emergency Management are engaged in this daily fight against, in most cases individuals that think they know our business but are short picture minded or in a competing industry with a lacking of proper training and knowledge.
The community below, Cannon Beach, also has sirens and their's use voice as the primary means to inform people Outdoors. Especially on a crowded beach, voice technology will immediately alert more people, faster than just a tone. From another view, removing sirens from one part of the West coast might be confusing to travellers who are aware that sirens are used everywhere else.
Just this past Sunday, my daughter, myself, a friend with her two daughters decided to drive to a quaint riverside restaurant on the outskirts of a tiny north Florida town twenty miles from home for dinner. While we were there, my daughter, who was texting at the time, looks up at me like she'd just seen a UFO. She shows me a severe wheather alert alerting us to tornadic activity with the message to take shelter NOW! We share the news with our friends and my girlfriend starts checking her phone and a minute or later, after bringing the phone to life, she's rewarded with her own critical alert. No one else inside or out the little restaurant had a clue anything was happening, including the staff. I went to the counter and let them know what was going on and asked where we should take shelter. I had to wait five minutes or more when finally the answer was "We'll all run into the kitchen". Really?!! With the vats of hot fish grease, knives, stoves, ovens and no walls to speak of as it is. Still, no one else has been alerted to the tornado "in our area" except the tables nearest to ours. My girlfriend and I quickly put our heads together and decide to grab the girls, the youngest a three year old, and head to the boat landing restrooms; a nice solid low block building with lots of plumbing to hold onto if worse came to worse. Please, emergency managers; keep installing and using sirens!!! If it hadn't been for my daughter texting on her "smart" phone, none of those people, including the folks in their small craft on the river, had no way to known the tornado was coming. We were lucky that time, after a spate of dangerously severe weather, the front, and apparently the tornado, passed us by.
The readers and writer should not be confusing a West Coast tsunami alert to tornado alerts. Sirens are indisputably useful for tornado alerts. On the West Coast, there are two types of tsunamis - distant generated and nearby fault generated. In the case of a distant generated tsunami, there are hours to notify citizens before the tsunai arrives. No siren necessary. In the case of a locally-generated tsunami, the citizens will already have warning - the 4-5 minutes of shaking. If the sole purpose of the siren is for tsunami warning, it is not necessary. They are indispensable for immediate tornado alerting.