The Siren Board

While driving down Harrison Ave today, I noticed that the Thunderbolt on top of the Fire Station on Epworth is gone. Maybe they are finally starting to remove the old decommissioned sirens or just that one. I heard that someone is going to turn that Fire Station into a restaurant and the new owner wanted the siren removed.

It seems like pretty much all old sirens are removed when forced or the jurisdiction decides to remove them. I think many of the old sirens will still remain standing for a long time.

Speaking of Whelen Hornets, does anyone know if the one at the fire station in Higginsport is active or not? The station itself looks pretty derelict so I can't imagine they get many calls.

Also...does anyone remember an old white firehouse around OH-131 in Milford with a Darley Champion on top? I believe it was demolished several years ago. I used to go to a nearby pumpkin patch when I was a kid and distinctly remember seeing that old Darley.

I was watching Dark Waters (a great movie about the DuPont Chemical Company cover-up) earlier today and got excited when there was a shot in downtown at the start of the movie... sure enough, you can see the Government Building Thunderbolt!

That’s pretty cool! Add that to the Sirens in Movies and TV Shows thread.

Urbanexplorer, perhaps you are thinking of the Darley Model 5 in Newtonsville at the Wayne Township fire department? It's a little ways west of Milford, but it is on OH-131.

If anyone is interested, Michael, mrboojay, and I headed out to Tate Township to record one of the prototype EOWS units. That video should be up later, but in the meantime I have something interesting to discuss.

Prior to the EOWS firing up a little after noon, we heard the Whelen Hornet south of us (the one at 133 and 774) sound off in wail for about a minute, and then it sounded in wail for a second time a little before the EOWS shut off. At first this was a little perplexing, but I think I've got it somewhat figured out. Either Clermont shares them with Brown County or Brown County owns them completely. They did not sound off on the same string of activation tones as any of Clermont County's sirens, nor did we hear any activation tones for them at all. They are close enough to the county line (less than 5 miles each) and Brown County is a primarily Whelen County that includes Hornets, so it wouldn't surprise me. Perhaps a call to the Brown County EMA is in order... As to why they went off twice, that's beyond me. We did hear Hamersville's Vortex, a Brown County unit, sound off for one cycle of alert along with the first cycle of wail for the Hornet.

Anyways, thought some of you might be interested in that. Did anyone else film anything yesterday?

Sorry for the double post, but I just got off the phone with the Brown County EMA and the Franklin Township/Felicity Fire Department.

I was wrong as far as Brown County having anything to do with them, at least from what I understood from the phone call with them.

As far as Franklin Twp. Fire, the chief who manages a lot of the maintenance for sirens wasn't in, but I was able to talk about the sirens anyways. The firefighter I talked to said he actually lives near the Hornet and also heard it go off early, and mentioned it going way longer than usual (the two wail cycles). Additionally, he said that the T-128 in Point Isabel went off early as well, which insinuates that the early activation was not exclusive to the Hornet(s). He also mentioned that he received no tones through his scanner but usually does.

My first thought was that Clermont could have performed testing of separate zones yesterday, but I imagine the activation tones would have all come through on the same channel. Otherwise, they may be changing around radios and/or switching over to a new channel. The whole situation is really bizarre. I plan on speaking to the chief at Felicity when he gets in next week.

I just thought I’d mention that I haven’t heard the Elmwood Place HOR go off at 9pm for the last few months or so. I wonder if it broke or they turned it off. I can’t find any posts through social media or anything through a Google search.

If it hasnt gone off in the past few months, then it must be deactivated.

Purring Cat wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2020 7:04 pm

If it hasnt gone off in the past few months, then it must be deactivated.

But I don’t know for sure if it’s inactive, because I don’t live extremely close to it. When the weather conditions are right, I’ve been able to hear it from my neighborhood, and on recent nights when the conditions seemed appropriate, I haven’t heard it.