Quorum Court Considering Adding BOTH Sirens. & Code Red Warnings
February 18th, 2014 by
FEMA approved tower locations
Following a extremely long, and at times confrontational, Quorum Court meeting, the JPs agreed to pursue both American Signal tornado warning sirens and Code Red digital and telephone notification systems.
60 people attended Monday’s QC meeting
The first to speak about the weather warning situation was county attorney Cliff Gibson. He clarified his earlier statements in reference to the contract that had been offered by American Signal, and stated that it appears they’re willing to renegotiate some of the details from there earlier contract submission.
Jill Mason presented Code Red and Code Red Weather Warning’s offering to the county. Code Red has been in business since 1998, was the first web-based notification emergency system, and is the most widely used system in Arkansas.
She pointed out that Code Res is now available on an app, and that the yearly cost of $12,600 will not increase.
Nita McDaniel of the MEDC gave an update on grant process and current situation. During her portion of the presentation, she explained that rotational sirens where rejected from bid consideration, due to maintenance of the many rotating parts. In closing, she referred to sirens as a “tried and true ” system.
Rob Rieselbach described the proposed American Signal system of 27 45 foot high omni-directional sirens, each one providing a 1.51 mile radius (at 70db). He explained that lightning strikes are very rare on sirens are very rare, and that his company will now include lightening rods to be installed with each siren.
He added that the tower at UAM will have voice capability, and The others will be “tone only”.
There are 836 square miles in county, and each of our the four Myers in the county were invited to briefly share their thoughts. Miramax will reported that he had heard excellent reports about American signal and there tornado warning systems. The mayors from Till and Winchester commented that they would preferred the Code Red system, U2 it’s flexibility.
Curly Jackson of Wilmar commented that he wanted both systems.
Judge Robert Akin then took the podium, with his first statement being that safety is the most important consideration in this decision.
In speaking about the financial funding of the warning program, Akin pointed out that back in 2010, each city in the county had agreed to pay their portion of the expense. If they still agreed to do so, then we just need to work out the details.
The next portion of the meeting very from discussion to squabbling between court members, mainly over the history of the tornado siren program.
The group finally agreed to approve a motion for the County judge, county attorney, all mayors in the county, along with representatives of Code Red, American Signal, and the MEDC, to work out the negotiations with the intent of providing both services to Drew County residents.
The quorum court will meet in a special called session on Monday, March 3, in hopes of approving both systems.
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You need to have American Signal verify that their sirens will cover that range at 70 dBC a FEMA standard. They just sold you some beach front property in Drew County then if your county officials buy into that. I live in Arkansas and they don’t have that range. I’ve also been in this business designing community sirens for 23 years. Under ANSI standards for testing sirens you need to make them prove it! Also, asking 50% down would worry me as an Arkansas resident. Everything I said is verifiable. Your city and county officials need to learn quick. You as citizens are stuck with these for 20-30 years. Shame they didn’t follow their own bid specs and buy the right sirens. We use the term “pig in a poke” a lot in Arkansad!