The Marion County Board will be hearing from three suppliers that could provide a new county-wide outdoor tornado warning system over the next six weeks.
The Chair of the Special 911/ESDA committee that is currently implementing the new NIXEL phone alert system Steve Whritenour says a better outdoor siren system is another step to make sure residents have multiple sources to receive tornado warnings.
“We have several different tornado sirens and not all of them talk together. Now I can tell right now we do have a capability from our 911 centers to activate all the tornado sirens within the county but we have different sirens and communication systems set up and its presenting not very cost effective issues that is going to the individual communities and the county as a whole.”
Whritenour notes most of the current sirens were put up in the 1990s if not earlier and have become a maintenance issue.
He says if the county board agrees to move forward the next question is how to fund it.
“So our goal is to find whatever grant monies that is available. In a perfect world there would be 100% cost and everything is covered, but at the end of the day say it’s a partial grant I can see reaching out to the individual communities and say hey we need to get on the same page with this.”
Whritenour says St. Clair County recently completed the installation of 115 new tornado warning systems and obtained grant money to pay for much of the $5-million cost. He adds the Marion County system should not be near as expensive.
Whritenour says one of the companies feels Marion County needs 32 warning sirens to reach most of the population instead of the current 24. One of the systems would automatically set off the sirens if the siren is in an area placed under a tornado warning. Those outside the warned area would not sound. Some of the systems also include loud speakers that could be used to make voice announcements to large gatherings such as those in a park.
