A test Thursday morning in the basement of the Tyrone Municipal Building verified a button hooked up to the siren system in the borough could be used as a way to alert residents of a wide-scale emergency.
The outcome gave borough officials hope that a long-planned emergency system might finally come to fruition.
Mayor Patricia Stoner said she became aware of the existence of the button and relayed the information to council at a meeting earlier this month. The system is located in a storage room in the basement of the municipal building.
Several borough officials including the mayor, interim Borough Manager Sharon Dannaway, Police Chief Joseph Beachem, Fire Chief Robert Lynn and councilperson Virgie Werner were on hand for the test. Werner has played a role for several years in an effort to bring a siren system to Tyrone to alert residents in case of a wide-scale emergency such as an industrial accident or a train wreck involving a chemical spill.
The mayor is hopeful the device can be used for three sirens which are already in place in the borough and a fourth one which could be installed after it is repaired and refurbished.
During the last several years, the borough, the Albemarle Citizens Advisory Council and others have explored the possibility of using a siren system to alert residents in case of a disaster, but no plan has ever been put into place.
The efforts have included locating sirens that were used in other municipalities, specifically Altoona, and bringing them to Tyrone. Some sirens have been located and one had been worked on by the American Eagle Paper Mill. The mayor said although some work had been done by the paper mill, the siren requires more repairs to make it operational. The costs associated with refurbishing such sirens has led the borough to look into the idea of using ones already in place.
Under such a system, the sirens would have to be programmed to have a different sound that when used for regular fire emergencies. By using the different sound, residents would be alerted that something beyond a regular emergency had occurred. The idea would be for them to turn to the radio and television to learn more about what had happened and what procedures to follow.
Borough officials said Blair County 911 would control the system and would alert the Tyrone Police Department to have the button activated.
“Okay wonderful,” said Stoner after she successfully activated the manual siren system by pressing the button.
The existing sirens are located at the borough building, the football field and near the Joyce Phillips’ property. The mayor said the siren at the Phillips’ property needs a fuse and the fourth siren, once operational, would be installed on a borough department shed.
The siren at the borough building could be clearly heard on Thursday after the mayor pressed the button. Shortly after the test, Dannaway said she had not had confirmation if the siren was heard at football field location.
The mayor said if such a system were in place last year during the September flooding it could have been used to alert residents to the rising waters.
She said sirens in surrounding communities such as Snyder could be hooked into the manual system. However, she stressed she thought it would be necessary for the township to bear the costs of fixing and putting up a siren if it were placed outside the borough. The system could also support sirens in place at an industrial facility, for example.
Werner said other sirens had been located in the city of Altoona and she thought it would still be a good idea for some of those sirens to be obtained and refurbished for use either in the borough or surrounding areas.
The mayor said it’s estimated the cost is around $2,000 to fix the siren that the borough plans to put on the department shed.
Lynn noted the borough would also have to consider having a generator so the manual system could still be activated in case of a power outage.
Borough officials said the button had been used years ago when Tyrone was under its own dispatch system. It was estimated it had not been operational for well over two decades.
Werner said there are still plans to have a followup to a meeting held on Jan. 26 between borough officials, the advisory council and Blair County’s emergency manager Rod Bohner, although nothing definite has been scheduled. The January meeting was designed to gain input from Bohner about Tyrone’s emergency response efforts. She said it was her belief, the advisory council also planned to continue work on the issue.
The hope is an overall response system for the Tyrone area would include the borough and other entities such as nearby townships, the school district, the hospital and local industries. Such a response plan would likely include coordinated efforts among the participants, in addition to the possibility of the siren system.
With the success of Thursday’s test, it will now be up to Tyrone Borough Council to decide if it wants to approve the implementing of the manual system.
