Oak Lawn Tornado Sirens Misfire, Emergency Officials Work On Fix
After a misfire during regular monthly testing the first Tuesday of the month, Oak Lawn's tornado sirens remain silent. The malfunctioning siren system in Oak Lawn, Illinois, caused a malfunction last week when the first Tuesday of the month when the system failed to sound. Diana Tousignant, director of emergency services, confirmed that technicians were working to resolve the issue and are still working on a resolution. The sirens can be manually set off in the event of a severe storm or other emergency, pending further testing. The current system was purchased with a $120,000 grant in 2013 to replace the 25-year-old system, which was designed to give area residents the earliest advance warning possible for tornadoes and other emergencies. The new system's features include improved sound coverage and voice capabilities to relay warning messages in four languages. However, residents initially complained about the new system’s voice and toneal sounds during monthly civil defense testing.
Publié : il y a 10 mois par Lorraine Swanson dans Weather
Diana Tousignant, director of emergency services, told Patch that the malfunction was discovered last week, when the siren system failed to sound on the first Tuesday of the month, the appointed time when emergency siren systems are tested throughout Illinois. “A technician responded last week, and we tested again this morning with negative results,” Tousignant said in an email. “The technicians were back on site again this morning and switched out our back-room siren equipment and are still actively working on a resolution.”
While Tousignant did not have an estimated time when the tornado sirens would be repaired, she was advised that the sirens could be manually set off in the event of a severe storm or other emergency. “Once we have a resolution, we will schedule additional testing,” she said.
Many residents were asking on social media if anyone heard the sirens after receiving notifications throughout the day that the Oak Lawn Regional Emergency Communications Center would be testing the emergency sirens for all the communities it served, including Alsip, Bridgeview, Burbank, Evergreen Park and Hodgkins. “Today's exercise will test some critical components which have been serviced since the regularly scheduled test last week,” the notification read.
Later in the day another notification went out that testing of the emergency sirens was canceled for the rest of the day. The current siren system was purchased with a $120,000 grant in 2013, to replace Oak Lawn’s then 25-year-old system. The American Signal Corporation outdoor emergency warning system was designed to give area residents the earliest advance warning possible to help the village be better prepared for tornadoes and other emergencies.
Among the then-new system’s features were better sound coverage and voice capabilities to relay warning messages in four languages, including English, Spanish, Polish and Arabic. The system was designed to warn people outdoors “who weren’t near a radio” to take cover in a storm or other disaster. During the new system’s installation in the summer of 2013, residents seem confused, if not scared, by the voices messages in various languages blaring through the neighborhood as well as the new siren tonal sounds during monthly civil defense testing. Months later, Oak Lawn residents ripped the new system claiming they couldn’t hear warnings when a freak tornadic storm rolled through the area in the middle of November. Others who heard the multi-language voice warnings to seek shelter complained the voices were too garbled to understand. OLREC went back to the traditional rising and falling wail sound similar to the civil defense sirens associated with the Cold War, that most residents grew up hearing during duck-and-cover drills at school, later changed to tornado drills to make it less scary to kids. The emergency alert for severe weather was extended and the voices were eliminated from the monthly testing. Unlike the old, outdated siren systems of the mid-century, the current system allows silent testing to be conducted on a daily basis to ensure it is working, village officials said. Meanwhile, residents are advised to keep checking the Village of Oak Lawn Facebook page for notification of subsequent tests in the near future.
Les sujets: Tornadoes