Air raid siren in the US
DG
town called Bishop, in California, which is quite a way from any major
city.
We were woken up at 3.00am by an air raid siren!! It was loud enough
to wake us up, and stayed on for about five or six complete cycles,
maybe a minute or more. It wasn't a car or house alarm I'm sure, it
sounded *exactly* like the british sirens I've heard on the internet,
on tv, etc.
Does anyone have any ideas why such a siren would be sounded? Does the
US still have a siren network?
It was a fairly sinister experience to be woken up by such a sound!!
Coincidently, later that morning, when I woke up again, switching on
the tv in the hotel, at around 7.00am or so, at least one of the TV
channels was running a test of the "emergency broadcast system" as
well!!
j.yeardly
Sirens don't just warn about air raid
possibly a hurricane or other emergency ??
Halmyre
@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, davi...@gmail.com says...
I remember being woken years ago (late 80s) by a siren in Edinburgh. You're
right about it being a sinister sound. I turned over and went back to sleep,
figuring that if the end of the world was imminent I'd rather not know about
it!
--
Halmyre
That's you that is.
SpamTrapSeeSig
<14c44561-4e11-4dd1...@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, DG
<davi...@gmail.com> writes
>Bishop, in California, which is quite a way from any major city.
>We were woken up at 3.00am by an air raid siren!!
Try Googling (or Wikipedia) for the city council, and then email their
tourist office.
If you get a reply (and Americans usually enjoy answering that sort of
thing), do tell us!
--
SimonM
----- TubeWiz.com -----
Video making/uploading that's easy to use & fun to share
Try it today! (now with DFace blurring)
Mike Ross
>I was on holiday recently in the US, staying for a night in a small
>town called Bishop, in California, which is quite a way from any major
>city.
>
>We were woken up at 3.00am by an air raid siren!! It was loud enough
>to wake us up, and stayed on for about five or six complete cycles,
>maybe a minute or more. It wasn't a car or house alarm I'm sure, it
>sounded *exactly* like the british sirens I've heard on the internet,
>on tv, etc.
>
>Does anyone have any ideas why such a siren would be sounded? Does the
>US still have a siren network?
Don't know about a network, but at a guess I think it's quite possible it was
the siren for the volunteer fire department; they may well use pagers, but major
alarms are often announced by a siren or similar device too.
>It was a fairly sinister experience to be woken up by such a sound!!
>
>Coincidently, later that morning, when I woke up again, switching on
>the tv in the hotel, at around 7.00am or so, at least one of the TV
>channels was running a test of the "emergency broadcast system" as
>well!!
Oh those are quite common - I see that on my TV at least once a month or so.
Mike (volunteer firefighter in New York)
--
http://www.corestore.org
'As I walk along these shores
I am the history within'
Gavin Christie
Daft though it may sound they dont use pagers or phones to call staff in
when there's a fire. They just sound a bloody great siren which wakes
everyone up.
When I asked about why they still do this I got some half-assed answer about
it being 'tradition' or something.
In New York at least all the firefighters outside the city are unpaid
volunteers and hence dont live in the firehouses but live nearby. Still a
bit backward to still use sirens if you ask me, but I understand thats the
norm all over the US.
G
"DG" <davi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:14c44561-4e11-4dd1...@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
Dave Liquorice
> That's a fire alarm.
In California probably, in the mid-west could be a tornado warning...
> Daft though it may sound they dont use pagers or phones to call staff in
> when there's a fire. They just sound a bloody great siren which wakes
> everyone up.
America can be rather backward for some things but a bloody great siren
could well be much more reliable than some small, third party, private,
cellphone or paging company. It also alerts auxillary staff that they
maybe required, staff that it would not be cost effective to provide with
pagers/phones.
Pretty sure they still fire off maroons in this country when a lifeboat is
called out just to alert everyone that the boat has been called.
--
Cheers
Dave.
Mike Ross
wrote:
>That's a fire alarm.
>
>Daft though it may sound they dont use pagers or phones to call staff in
>when there's a fire. They just sound a bloody great siren which wakes
>everyone up.
Excuse me. All the departments I know use pagers, and a thing called iPage,
which sends an SMS message to your phone. The siren is a backup.
>When I asked about why they still do this I got some half-assed answer about
>it being 'tradition' or something.
No, it's a backup - plus a failsafe, in case some members are in a dead spot for
pager or cellphone reception. Having said that, there IS a saying in fire
circles in the USA... "200 years of tradition, unimpeded by progress..."!
>In New York at least all the firefighters outside the city are unpaid
>volunteers
By no means. Many departments *are* all-volunteer, but there are paid fire
departments in larger cities outside NYC - places like Buffalo, Syracuse etc. -
and there are also many 'combination' departments: these are run by and mainly
staffed by volunteers, but they also employ a few paid firefighters, so there
are always 2 or 3 guys in the firehouse to get the rigs on the road ASAP. The
volunteers all drive to the call and meet the rigs there. Improves response
times. My department works like that: http://www.tmfd.org/
Mike
Dave Liquorice
> The volunteers all drive to the call and meet the rigs there. Improves
> response times.
The retained firemen over here drive to the station, dive into their kit
and pile into the engine and ride in that to the incident. I guess your
volunteers keep their kit in their car at all times? I can see advantages
in that.
--
Cheers
Dave.
DG
volunteer fire dept the next day. Can see why they don't rely on cells
or pagers as well, even in the centre of the town I had no reception.
Still, must take a while to get used to being woken up by that sound,
how would you know if it's just a fire or the end of the world!!
Mike Ross
Yep, that's how we operate. If it's an all-volunteer department... often there
will be a designated duty crew, or at least duty driver, who goes to the house
and gets the rig out. Other members will meet them at the scene.
There will be some videos - training and incidents - going up on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=abaduck
Jules
> Does anyone have any ideas why such a siren would be sounded?
Up here (middle of Minnesota) they're normally tornado warnings - but I
have heard them go off down in Minneapolis during the night too when
there's a major incident, as some kind of warning that lots of emergency
vehicles are coming through (which seems like a bit of a bonkers reason to
wake everyone up!)
Periodic tests seem to be done too, in the order of once a month or so.
> Coincidently, later that morning, when I woke up again, switching on the
> tv in the hotel, at around 7.00am or so, at least one of the TV channels
> was running a test of the "emergency broadcast system" as well!!
Yep, that happens pretty often - ditto with the radio. I think tests
might happen less frequently during the colder months up here (i.e. out of
tornado / fire season)
cheers
Jules
MB
from Mike Ross <mi...@corestore.org> contains these words:
> Excuse me. All the departments I know use pagers, and a thing called iPage,
> which sends an SMS message to your phone. The siren is a backup.
I am surprised that they use SMS, I thought the mobile companies give no
guarantee of how before the message is delivered. It can be seconds,
minutes, hours or days.
Clive
@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com:
> I was on holiday recently in the US, staying for a night in a small
> town called Bishop, in California, which is quite a way from any major
> city.
>
> We were woken up at 3.00am by an air raid siren!! It was loud enough
> to wake us up, and stayed on for about five or six complete cycles,
> maybe a minute or more. It wasn't a car or house alarm I'm sure, it
> sounded *exactly* like the british sirens I've heard on the internet,
> on tv, etc.
>
Here in Sweden they still have a national siren, installed during the days
of the cold war, but it is still tested nationwide on the first Monday of
the month at 1500, sounds more like a foghorn then the British sirens, but
it still gives me an eerie feeling each time I hear it.
//Clive.
Mike Ross
There is no guarantee, and whilst 98% of the messages are delivered instantly,
there can be long delays once in a while - mostly more to do with our servers
than with the mobile side of things! But iPage is just a convenience - the good
old-fashioned Motorola pagers are the primary means of getting us out.
