June 17, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
The City of Smithville will soon have sirens to alert the community in the event of a tornado threat.
During Monday night’s monthly meeting, the aldermen awarded a bid to Capitol Electronics for a Federal Signal system. The cost is $71,497. One time state grant funds coming to city will cover the purchase.
Smithville Fire Chief and DeKalb Emergency Management Agency Director Charlie Parker said two sirens will be installed including one on the city’s water tank near the high school on Highway 70 and the other at the city’s water tank on Miller Road. The system is capable of adding more sirens later if needed including the reactivation of a siren on top of city hall.
“With this system it is completely upgradeable. We are looking at placing two sirens including one at the water tank at the high school and a second one at the water tank on Miller Road. We may look at doing a little adjusting for better coverage. We considered placing a siren at the water tank by the airport but we will get really good coverage with the two sirens. I also talked to them (company) about using the siren we have on top of city hall. We could probably have it upgraded for about $4,000. This is a turnkey system which has everything we need to get started. It is an automated system that originates from the National Weather Service and goes to another source which will send out the alert. The 911 Center, where the (system) is to be housed, will receive the alert and activate the sirens. The system will also automatically send out other text and tone alerts that we may utilize that would be beneficial not only to the city but the county and 911. The bid package includes training and an annual software upgrade (about $2,500 for the upgrade). The system is also expandable. If we need to add more sirens we can do that up to 10 sirens,” said Parker.