City of Gainesville gets new, upgraded storm sirens

Last week’s installation of three new storm sirens in Gainesville will help residents be better alerted to impending severe weather. 

“It’s a big upgrade,” Gainesville Mayor Gail Reich told the Times. “I’m so happy to get them all installed. It costs some money, but you can’t put money ahead of public safety. You just can’t.”

When do the sirens sound?

The sirens are deployed by the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department when the threat of a tornado is in the area. 

“We set off the sirens for Gainesville when the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning that includes Gainesville in the list of cities,” Ozark County Emergency Management director and OCSD administrative assistant Curtis Ledbetter said, adding that the sheriff’s department also deploys alarms in Theodosia and Bakersfield when a tornado warning is issued in those areas. There are currently no storm sirens in the Dora area.  

“I think they’re doing a good job of setting them off beforehand,” Reich said. “I’d rather be safe than sorry. People say, ‘Well, there wasn’t a tornado.’ If they say [there’s a tornado warning] for Ozark County, you never know where, when or if it’s going to hit. Maybe there isn’t a tornado, but like the last storm, people were warned ahead of time that it’s a possibility. They hear [the alarm] and can say, ‘It’s on the way.’”

A major upgrade

Outdoor Warning Consulting of Jefferson City won the city’s bid for the project, and OWC’s owner, Bryce Koerber, and a small crew met with Gainesville city employees Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, June 15-17, to assemble and install the new sirens. It wasn’t a quick or easy task. 

The massive, 9-foot sirens include nine 360-degree radius cells, or speakers, that project the siren in all directions. Each of the city’s three new sirens includes a sound-projection radius of 5,800 feet, just over a mile. The sound is deployed at 128 decibels at 100 feet and at 70 decibels at its longest-rated range, 5,800 feet. The specs of the new system are in line with FEMA guidelines, unlike the city’s previous system, Koerber said. 

The system runs off a battery system that is charged as needed. It includes a back-up battery pack that would allow the sirens to deploy a three-minute warning 10 different times before additional power was needed. 

The system also features the capability to use six different tones, including a specific one that the city will use during its monthly sirens test; that test signal is the Westminster chimes with a prerecorded message that announces that the city is conducting a test. The monthly siren test is scheduled for the first Thursday of each month, unless there are stormy skies or issues with the system. The new system also allows the city to do a silent test for times between the monthly siren testing if an issue arises. 

The new equipment is a big upgrade from the old sirens, which are thought to be several decades old. 

City employees say they’ve found a record of one malfunctioning siren being replaced sometime in the 90s, but they’re unsure of when the others were installed, presumably sometime before that. 

The old sirens operated through a speaker that rotated, projecting sound about 1,400 feet, but only in the direction it was pointing at the time. 

“There was not enough power behind those to actually overlap [with the other sirens’ paths], so there were certain sections of the city that could not get any type of signal,” said Gainesville city clerk Lisa Goodnight. 

Two broken sirens, one big decision

The Gainesville Board of Aldermen have been discussing the storm sirens and the option of replacing them for several years, but the high cost of replacement kept them from making a move on the project – that is, until this March.

One of the three old speaker’s rotational track had been broken for several years, meaning that speaker was only projecting the storm siren in the direct path where it was facing, which was outside of Gainesville, leaving a good part of the city without a loud, clear siren. 

When the city attempted to have the item repaired, it was informed that the old siren technology was obsolete and the needed replacement parts were no longer available. The city attempted to have a fabricator custom-build the needed part, but that wasn’t possible either. To add to the complication, in order for workers to be licensed to repair the equipment, they had to have special safety equipment and certification.

There were no nearby companies that could do the work, meaning even if the city could somehow purchase a part to complete it, the cost to have it fixed would be expensive because someone would have to travel from far away to do the repairs. 

Then, this March, when the city conducted its monthly sirens test, employees realized that the rotational track on another siren wasn’t working, leaving it also projecting in one path instead of the intended rotational deployment. 

“And we knew by experience that we can’t get the parts to fix those. So they were outdated and ineffective now,” said Goodnight. 

At a city council meeting a few days later, on March 9, council members were informed of the situation and had yet another discussion about the equipment. The group voted to purchase the new sirens. 

Choosing a system

The city reached out to OWC and asked for an updated bid on the project for a Whelen brand system. The company presented two different options: another rotational system similar to the one the city had had in the past for around $70,000, or the bigger, louder system including the 360-degree speakers for just shy of $86,000. The council decided that the benefit of the fixed system was well worth the difference in price. 

“There are no moving parts. So maintenance on it is not going to involve the moving-parts issue we’ve had in the past, which is a lot better,” Goodnight said. 

The unit includes a two-year complete warranty with an additional three-year limited warranty. The city will also likely agree to a maintenance contract for the company to return yearly to inspect and update the system as needed. 

The batteries are rated for three to four years, and the system has a life expectancy of 20 years. 

Installation

The system was built to order and arrived at the city shed last week. Koerber and the OWC team arrived in Ozark County June 15 and began the full-day process of assembling the various siren parts. 

Then, on Wednesday, they began the installation process – not an easy task since each of the 9-foot assembled sirens weighs a whopping 500 pounds. 

“We had to borrow a pallet jack to even get them on the trailer to drive them up here,” city water specialist Jessi Price told the Times as the company hoisted the massive siren into the air on a wooden pole at the city’s center water tower on Harlin Drive. 

The new sirens are installed on 60-foot poles rather than the 40-foot poles the previous sirens were on, meaning the sound should project even farther. 

“This is going to benefit several people outside of the city limits too,” Goodnight said. 

A siren was installed at each of the city’s three well-water towers/tanks: the east location on Water Tower Road near the Giles and Kendall cedar plant, the center location on Harlin Drive and the western location near County Roads 805 and 806, just north of West Plains Propane’s Gainesville office. 

Making a safer community

Currently, when a tornado warning is issued, an Ozark County Sheriff’s Department employee, usually a deputy, unlocks the basement door on the southeast corner of the Ozark County Courthouse to provide shelter for area residents. 

The new sirens, which cover a larger area, will also pair well with Gainesville High School’s upcoming major renovation project that will include a 7,792-square-feet addition on the front of the existing structure that can be used as a tornado shelter for the general public. 

The shelter project is made possible by a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)-funded grant aimed at better protecting communities from the threat of severe weather. 

The structure will be able to withstand 250-mph winds, and will be open for anyone to use as a shelter when a tornado warning is issued, even outside of school hours. 

The project will be funded with more than $2 million in grant funds from FEMA and somewhere between $800,000 and $1.1 million in Gainesville district funds. 

Gainesville superintendent Justin Gilmore said the timeline is flexible and may shift one way or the other throughout construction, but he’s hoping the structure will be completed by fall 2022.