The Siren Board

I found an article online about St. Louis' cold war air raid tests. On January 16, 1954 at 9:45 AM, the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County conducted their first-ever "Red Alert" drill. This was the first drill using the city's and county's newly-installed sirens. 17 municipalities in the county had their own sirens, plus unincorporated St. Louis County had its own system of 18 sirens, which were Thunderbolt 1000's. St. Louis had 120 Federal STL-10's. This more than likely means that the county T-Bolts were installed in mid-to-late 1953. At least that's my guess (If you didn't know already, Federal released the T-Bolt 1000 in 1952).

On the St. Louis County Police Department website, there's a history of the police department, and it mentions about the 18 sirens being installed in the 1950's (it wasn't specific about the year they were installed). So I'm guessing that these were the T-Bolt 1000's installed in the unincorporated areas of the county in 1953. The other article that I mention above is the one that stated that 17 municipalities in the county had their own sirens. And some of those larger municipalities had more than one siren. Today, St. Louis County has 208 sirens (Whelen 2900-series).

As a kid I remember seeing the county T-Bolt 1000's, in which each one had the blower box installed several feet up on the telephone pole, but not on a platform; the bottoms of the blower boxes, which in most installations sat on a concrete pad, were bolted to the pole. It looked a little strange, to say the least. The nearest T-Bolt to where I lived from 1964-1971 was about a mile away and could be heard loud and clear. We moved further south in 1971, but only about three miles, and that T-Bolt could still be heard, but barely. If the wind was blowing right, or in the Winter, we could still hear it, but not like we could at our old house.

Also noted in the article was that St. Louis and St. Louis County began activating their sirens for Tornado Warnings in 1967.

Interesting history. By the time I came around the Whelens had been in service for several years. I do remember seeing an STL-10 in the downtown area, though. I imagine that is long gone by now.

There is still one STL-10 standing in the City of St. Louis, though long ago disconnected. It's along I-64, east of IKEA, on the north side of the highway, up on a hill, near midtown.

I have a map of the original STL-10 locations in the city. I found 4 total when I lived there 2004-2008 (before I had all the locations !), including the one visible from US 40 / I-64. I don't know if the other 3 are still up 10 years later now.

One was in 2004 when I walked Lindell Blvd from Wash U to downtown. It was in someone's backyard right by the new cathedral.

One was off Vandeventer near I-44.

The other was in an alley on an obliterated north side neighborhood.

There is an STL10 still standing in an alley behind a contractor shop on Vandeventner across from Don Brown Chevrolet. Those STL10s were landline activated and quite troublesome in that regard. Lightning and other surges would cause a lot of false activations. As they began breaking in the late 70s and 80s into the 90s the city would never put much into repairing them and replaced none. By the time a tornado touchhdown occured in 1996 only about 25 were functioning and then mayor Clarence Harmon finally coughed up some money in the budget for 60 Whelen 28XXs. They were up and running in late 1999. I wonder if any have been replaced. The only problems with the Whelens that I've read about is their occasional activation in discontinuous air horn mode and not the usual alert.

St Louis County's first use in a tornado warning was in January 1967 when an F4 tornado ripped through north county. I would guess some of the municipalities activated as well for the event. In 1982 a bond issue was voted for and passed which consolidated control of all the sirens in St Louis County and funded an expansion of the number of sirens in unincorporated areas. Whelen was chosen and WS3016s and WS400Rs popped up in many places. With the addition of those along with with the original T1000s and the multiple different models in use in the municipalities they took over, the system of 215 sirens was quite a hodge podge. All were fitted with Whelen receiver boxes for unified single source activation. There were multiple Federals in the system including 1000Ts, 1000s, 2t22s, STH10s, SD10s, 608s, and a couple of model 2s along with the WS3016s, and, 400Rs. That was one busy maintenance crew.

I remember all of the old T-Bolts, SD-10's and 2T22's that used to be in St. Louis County's old Civil Defense siren system. I don't recall any Federal Model 2's, but I do know that there were at least three Model 5's (or 7's?). One was in Berkeley at the old Berkeley High School at Airport Road and I-170; a red one was located on top of the old Veterans Administration Hospital in Jefferson Barracks in south St. Louis County; and the other one was mounted on the roof of the old Olivette municipal building on Olive Blvd.

The only Federal STH-10's that I know of in St. Louis County (there are 2) are located in Chesterfield, both at the county water works buildings. I'm curious to know if these are leftovers from the old county CD system or if they're owned and operated by Missouri-American Water Company or what the deal is. They were there long before Missouri-American Water took over St. Louis County Water Company. What's strange is that they're both activated along with the new system of Whelen 2900-series sirens. Why are these the only two old sirens left and they're still operating???

I think the "608's" that you're referring to were actually Federal EOWS-612's. I only saw three of these. One was next to Brentwood City Hall on Brentwood Blvd., one on Pohlman Road and Derhake Road in Florissant, and the other was located next to the Creve Coeur municipal building on North New Ballas Road. There may have been a few more but these were the only ones that I ever saw.

The only STL-10 located in St. Louis County was at the Crestwood Fire Department fire station on Sappington Road. It sat on top of the hose tower roof and was replaced by a pole-mounted Whelen 4003 out front of the Crestwood City Hall (which the fire station is attached to). A few years later the 4003 was replaced by a Whelen 2910, in the same spot as the 4003. That STL-10 had been installed in the 1950's at Crestwood's old fire station, as I've seen a picture of it.

Along with the Whelen 3016's, there were several Whelen 2000-R's installed in 1982 as well, though the 3016's outnumbered the 2000-R's.

Webster Groves had a system of Federal SD-10's. Supposedly they had nine of those. I only saw two of them: One was located at Murdoch Avenue and Big Bend Blvd., and the other was along Old Watson Road just east of Elm Avenue.

There was an SD-10 on North Lindbergh Blvd. just south of Olive Blvd. in the Creve Coeur area. A 2T22 was located on Creve Coeur Mill Road just west of Prichard Farm Road in the Maryland Heights area. I believe these two sirens were part of St. Louis County's CD system and not municipal-owned.

Also, there were two ACA Allertronic AL-6000-R's in the system that I know of. One had replaced a T-Bolt 1000 at Ross Road and Fee Fee Road in the Maryland Heights area, and the other replaced a T-Bolt 1000 at the old Bernard Elementary School on Forder Road in south St. Louis County. These were installed around 1989/1990. I find it interesting that with all the Whelens and Federals in the system at the time that St. Louis County decided to throw a few ACA's into the mix. (The ACA at Bernard School was replaced a few years later by a Whelen 4003, and now there's a Whelen 2910 in the 4003's place).

Around 1979 St. Louis County switched from "CD", or Civil Defense, to "CP", or Civil Preparedness. The symbol was the same as the old CD symbol, just that the "D" was replaced by a "P". Several of St. Louis County's new Whelen sirens installed in 1982 had the "CP" decal on their cabinets.

metalstorm, where did you find the information that St. Louis County first used the sirens for the Tornado Warning in January 1967? I've often wondered if they'd been activated for that. My wife grew up in Maryland Heights and was almost 4 years old when that tornado hit. Her family lived just a few blocks away from where it plowed through that part of the county. My mother-in-law remembers how bad the storm was and of them hunkering down in the basement.

There's one Thunderbolt still standing in St. Louis County that I'm aware of. It's on top of a government building at 38.685334, -90.370564. The siren apparently survived a building fire in the 1970's, according to a newspaper article.

Glist, that's the old Federal Records Building on Page Avenue in Overland. It contained millions of military veterans' records. The fire occurred in July 1973 and destroyed the top (6th) floor. That floor was removed and never rebuilt and, instead, was replaced by the new roof. The building remained open and operating until six years ago when a new federal records center building was built and opened in north St. Louis County along I-270. I did find one picture of the aftermath of the fire, taken by a helicopter, from just above the roof, and the T-Bolt, undamaged by the fire, can clearly be seen. The horn and part of the standpipe were mounted on top of a small cinder block structure, and inside of that was where the blower box was located.

The old records building opened in 1955 but I'm unsure when the T-Bolt was installed on the roof, since the original St. Louis County T-Bolt 1000's were installed in 1953. Of course that T-Bolt is no longer operational and I'm unsure why it was never taken down. There's an article on Wikipedia about the fire, along with numerous pictures.

Fed TB, a spotter class run by St Louis County's EM and the wrather service back in 2010. They went through a history of tornados in the area and the response to them by Civil Defense. It was becoming more commonplace for communities to use the sirens after the Palm Sunday outbreak and successful use in Minneapolis snd Topeka during major tornado events in 1965 and 66 respectively. Great spotter class and very informative but they're now run exclusively by the National Weather Service.