Representatives of Albemarle\u2019s Community Advisory Council were at Monday\u2019s Tyrone Borough Council meeting to urge the borough to take necessary action to allow the implementation of a long-planned emergency siren system to proceed.
\nThe siren system would be used for wide-scale emergencies beyond a regular fire call and would require a different sound or cadence or series of cadences depending on the nature of the incident.
\nPatrick Campbell of the advisory council told The Daily Herald, \u201cWe have been trying (since 1994) to establish a 911 setup (using sirens) if anything happens in the borough.\u201d
\nHe cited some examples such as \u201cif Albermarle had a serious leakage of chemicals, if there was a serious chemical spill on I-99 or a flood.\u201d
\nCampbell said, \u201cThe ball at this point is in their (the borough\u2019s) court. We\u2019ve done everything we can. Four out of five of the sirens are in working order.\u201d
\nA fifth siren is planned to be erected at the Tyrone Area Schools with the cost to be covered by Albemarle. Campbell said the school district is on board with the idea.
\n\u201cThe last step, the final step is something we can\u2019t do,\u201d said Campbell. \u201cThe borough needs to get with the 9-1-1 Blair County Coordinator.\u201d
\nCampbell explained a protocol has to be established. If there is an emergency, the borough would be notified and the siren would used to notify people that there is some type of an emergency. Residents would be instructed to tune into the local radio station or a designated television station to learn more about the emergency and what action they should take.
\nA system needs to be established that would indicated the nature of the emergency depending of what type of \u201ccadence\u201d the siren emits, according to Campbell.
\nBorough Manager Sharon Dannaway told Campbell she would relay the information to Tyrone\u2019s emergency management coordinator Jim Beckwith and ask him to contact the county to further the effort.
\n\u201cHe (Beckwith) has fought us tooth and nail on this since 1994, so I\u2019m cautiously optimistic that hopefully we can get this done,\u201d said Campbell.
\nMoney has been set aside for pamphlets to be printed and distributed to the public to advise them on how the system would work. Campbell said once the system was ready a test would be conducted involving the siren\u2019s cadence.
\nLast year, a test was conducted in the basement of the Tyrone Municipal Building to verify if a button that already exists there could be hooked up to the siren system to alert residents of a wide-scale emergency. The test verified the button worked when activated manually.
\nA previous Herald article noted 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 siren system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Representatives of Albemarle\u2019s Community Advisory Council were at Monday\u2019s Tyrone Borough Council meeting to urge the borough to take necessary action to allow the implementation of a long-planned emergency siren system to proceed. The siren system would be used for wide-scale emergencies beyond a regular fire call and would require a different sound or cadence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}