Pesky siren slated for complete overhaul

This story was published Sat, Mar 4, 2000

By Terry Hudson
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON - One stubborn siren in the Alert and Notification System is giving Oregon Emergency Management technicians fits.

A Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program warning siren has failed to work properly for five months and will get a complete overhaul starting Monday.

The siren, near the intersection of Highway 395 and Follett Lane in Hermiston, has perplexed technical contractors because the siren would work perfectly during some tests but fail others.

"We've been testing the sirens for two years, and we never had any problem with them," said Tom Worden, a spokesman for Oregon Emergency Management's regional office in Pendleton.

"This one has defied all efforts to fix it. After we would do a repair on it, it would check out on the silent test, but when we would actually trigger it, sometimes it would start and abruptly stop, or it would not activate at all. It's really been frustrating."

Including the seven sirens on the depot, there are 42 sirens throughout the communities surrounding the depot. Worden said six new ones will be added and five others will be moved from their present locations to other spots.

"That's because of shifting populations and new developments," Worden said.

The Alert and Notification System was put in place mainly to warn residents living near the Umatilla Chemical Depot in case of a chemical agent release.

The depot, seven miles west of Hermiston, stores 220,604 munitions and containers filled with 7.4Êmillion pounds of deadly nerve and mustard agents. The Army plans to begin burning the weapons in an incinerator in October 2001.

The single siren near Follett Lane is the only one that is giving Oregon Emergency Management such a big problem.

Larry Ross, the OEM technical services contractor who maintains the siren system, said a number of component changeouts have taken place over the five months, but the problem has continued to surface during regular testing on the last Tuesday of each month.

Last Monday, the siren was tested before the testing of the entire siren system the following day. It failed again during the test of the whole siren system.

In the latest test done Tuesday, the verbal recorded messages in English and Spanish worked, but the siren itself did not sound.

"We're just going to systematically check every component and then test it after looking at each component," Worden said. "We'll attempt to activate it with every component change."

The test schedule for the lone siren will run Monday through FridayMarch 10 or until the flawed component is discovered and replaced. If the flaw cannot be found, the siren will be replaced.

"It's not in a densely populated area; it's mostly a business strip," Worden said. "But it's one of our important ones. If worse comes to worse, we'll just replace the whole thing."

A siren intended to be placed at a new location was sacrificed for parts needed to make the Follett Lane siren operable. The sacrificial siren then will be replaced by another new one and installed at its new location as soon as it arrives.

 

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