City officials hope siren plans come through loud and clear

By AMY SATTERWHITE / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Current siren

The city of McMinnville is planning to be better prepared for severe weather and may be as early as this spring after city officials voted to purchase an entirely new warning system Tuesday.

Primarily to be used for weather emergencies, the new system is expected to cost around $88,000, and plans are to begin installing it in six to eight weeks, officials said.

The new system includes four tone-type sirens and two that have voice capabilities, City Administrator Herb Llewellyn said. It replaces the old system, which was a siren formerly used to give air raid warnings.

That siren was installed at the Civic Center more than five years ago after previous administration officials said they believed having a weather warning system was important for the community.

Plans to install additional air raid sirens at other locations throughout the city for use in severe weather warning situations were never realized and current city officials said a modern system is needed. They set aside $60,000 for the 2003-2004 fiscal year, but bids came back higher than expected. This year, however, city officials anticipated the costs and were ready to move on a new siren.

Once installed, the sirens will be sounded for tornado warnings, as well as severe thunderstorm warnings.

“A severe thunderstorm can have winds nearly as high as a tornado,” Mayor Royce Davenport said. “We’ll probably look at that again then, and I hesitate to put out much information right now. It may all change in two months. With the new system, we’re going to have some different capabilities and we’re also going to be trying to do a more comprehensive alert system.”

Llewellyn said while details on the tonal sirens still need to be worked out, there is a possibility of placing the voice-capable sirens at the Civic Center and somewhere along the Barren Fork Greenway where there will be concentrations of people. The old air raid siren will likely be moved to near Vervilla Road, he said.