News

Public Safety Committee hears storm siren presentation

Posted July 02, 2015 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler The Herald Tribune

CHESTER -- As part of its regular meeting on Wednesday, the Chester Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee meeting heard a presentation on the city's storm sirens.

Andrew Labahn, central region sales manager for Federal Signal, and Blue Valley Public Safety Inc. Sales Consultant Bruce Fisher reported to the committee on options for a potential new warning system.

"We're just giving different options on where to go with a warning system," said Fisher, who distributed a packet of information to the committee. "This is the type of system that you can build a little bit at a time."

The subject of the sirens has been at least mentioned several times during previous committee meetings. EMA Coordinator Charlie Bargman II has previously stated that communication problems with the transmitter located under the water tower behind Red Dot Construction and Equipment Rental has resulted in intermittent activation of the sirens during tests.

"We're not a radio shop, we do sirens," Fisher said. "We don't want to butt heads with the radio shop. We want to work with the radio shop."

Chester has four storm sirens - at Bert's Auto Service, the Chester Grade School water tower, near Chester Skateland and atop Chester City Hall. Bargman said the one atop City Hall was installed in the 1960s.

"The sirens were installed in 2000, but not maintained until 2009," Bargman said. "We started a maintenance program that fall."

Fisher said Chester has three of his company's 2001 mechanical sirens, which can produce three different tones, have battery backup and use radio control activation. The two points of activation are the Chester Police Department and the Randolph County Sheriff's Office.

Yearly maintenance of the sirens costs the city $2,000 and the batteries are replaced every three years.

Standard length of activation is three minutes, but Fisher said that can be altered with new, two-way digital controls. As part of their presentation, Labahn and Fisher showed the committee potential sites for new sirens.

"You don't want to put the siren at the top of the hill or at the bottom of the hole and you do have some topography problems in Chester," Fisher said.

With a sound 130 decibels strong, Fisher said residents usually don't want the sirens in their front yards and suggested using government buildings, schools and churches as locations.

He added that newer sirens have voice capability with either live or pre-recorded audio.

"What I'd like to do is put these sirens in a place where people will be outside at one time," he said, while mentioning the Cohen Complex as an example.

Fisher said the two-way system also conducts an internal test to make sure it is functioning properly.

"Right now, we don't know anything's going wrong until we get a complaint," Bargman said.

Fisher said the two-way system would cost roughly $25,000 for mechanical sirens and $22,000 for electronic, which run off a battery box. The average life expectancy of mechanical sirens is 40 to 50 years and between 15 and 20 years for electronic.

Committee member and Chester Alderman Robert Platt asked about the possibility of someone hacking into the system.

"Intrusion is one of the things the system checks for," Fisher said, adding they could encode the system to make it secure.

The committee took no action on the proposal and thanked Fisher and Labahn for their presentation.

In other EMA news, Bargman said city officials are continuing to monitor the flood levels on the Mississippi River. The river was forecasted to crest at 39.7 feet, 12.7 feet above flood stage, Friday afternoon.

"There's really nothing out of the ordinary that we haven't dealt with before," he said.

Police Report

Chester Police Chief Ryan Coffey said written examinations for the open sergeant's' position are set for Sept. 3. No date for the oral interview part of the process has been scheduled.

"We had a conflict with a National Guardsman on staff who will be out of the country and we decided to push it back," he said.

Coffey said he has spoken with several of the city's aldermen regarding the residency expansion for full-time officers, which has been previously discussed by the committee. He is also hoping to broaden residency for part-time dispatchers as well.

"My feeling is this could benefit us from the standpoint of past experience," he said.

Finally, the committee entered executive session.

"It was talking about personnel and budgeting, but I can't release the details on that," Coffey said in a follow-up interview with the Herald Tribune on Thursday.

Article Categories
News