County Council approves purchasing additional weather sirens

mapping with suggested locations — This is the map of existing sirens and proposed sirens. The NEW marks the proposed locations. The map is not exact and the varied colored rings denote range according to signal strength. St. Henry is not marked on the map but is a recommended location for a new siren.

The County Council approved $125,000 to update one existing siren in Duff and to add five new weather sirens in several communities in the county at the meeting on Monday.

Dubois County Emergency Management Director Tammy Miller addressed the board stating since becoming involved with emergency management she and Deputy Director Gary Fritz have always recognized the need for additional weather sirens in the county. The department had waited to see if grants or funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would ever become available, but the belt-tightening on the part of federal entities due to the economy has stopped those plans from coming to fruition.

Miller introduced St. Anthony Fire Chief Scott Uebelhor who explained with the recent reallocation of funds from the state after the accounting error and the county’s substantial “rainy day fund”, the county was in a better position to consider the option to increase the current sirens in the county to cover a few rural areas not currently covered.

St. Anthony Fire Chief Scott Uebelhor explained to the council his concerns after the recent Henryville disaster and the weather that traveled through Dubois County during that day. He stated he knew what was happening because of his fire department pager but much of the area had no idea. He took it upon himself to contact Federal Signal Corp. of University Park, IL, and with their help created locations for more sirens in the county.

The recommendations at this point include putting rotating sirens in the following areas; the Dubois County 4-H Fairgrounds, St. Anthony, Schnellville, Birdseye and St. Henry. An existing siren at Duff would be upgraded with spare parts from a siren in Ferdinand to become a rotating siren to achieve better coverage. These additional sirens would reach a total of 939 households that were previously out of range.

The cost and installation of each siren will cost around $22,400 if the county moves forward with the purchase before July; after July the siren hardware price will increase 5% to $23,101. Refitting the Duff siren is estimated to cost around $5200.

After the installation of the sirens the communities the sirens are located in will need to pay approximately $25 a month for electricity and around $250 a year on insurance. The county would pay for the siren located at the 4-H Fairgrounds.

Miller reiterated these sirens are for those people doing activities outside that do not have access to a weather radio. The sirens are meant to give these individuals warning and time to find cover before severe weather is upon them. “This has never been designed to wake people up to warn them,” Miller stated. “That is why we have really pushed for the weather radios and that has really worked. These sirens are for people at sporting events, working or at outside events.”

The council will be accepting bids for the sirens based on the recommendations presented at the meeting.