Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Should sirens be allowed on top of shopping malls equipped with theatres?

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Posted by Matthew Bailey (Member # 601) on 07-30-2004, 09:11 AM:

I have a question with no advertising intendedjust telling you what type of model & make of siren it is. I found photos of it in the www.airraidsirens.com Q&A forums. It is a dual toned Thunderbolt 1000T siren once made by Federal Signal,a siren with a rotating square horn & pressurized by a Roots supercharger style blower to make it louder-about 130 decibels at 100 feet.
It's on the roof of an indoor shopping mall called Northgate near a JC Penney,but what I'm asking is should outdoor warnng sirens be allowed on top of malls that have a theatre inside or nearby because even if the theatre complies with THX standards in being sound insulated,would someone be likely to hear the siren inside the auditorium even if the siren was directly on top of the theatre & should it br relocated to comply with THX noise standards whether or not the theatre is THX certifed?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-30-2004, 09:22 AM:

It depends on what the siren is for. For example, there is a nuclear power plant near Rochester, and there are numerous sirens located within a ten mile radius of the plant to warn of situations that may require evacuation. If the sirens go off, you are supposed to tune in to emergency broadcasts on the radio for evacuation instructions. Hopefully, the sirens will never be used, except for annual testing. If I were in a theatre, I would WANT to hear the sirens. [Eek!]

If the siren is for the local fire department to call firefighters, it probably is used on a relatively frequent basis. In that case, it certainly should be relocated away from the theatre.

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 07-30-2004, 09:56 AM:

But couldnt the sirens easily be heard in the lobby, and management would be able to alert the patrons in a safe manner. Rather than a theater full of people all running out at once.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-30-2004, 10:04 AM:

Isn't Texas right in the middle of "Tornado Alley"? (The southernmost end of it, anyway.) And, if you are near enough to the coastline, you would be subject to the occasional hurricane too. No?

I imagine that it is there for a tornado siren.

If that's the case, I don't know about you but, I'd want to have about SIX of them up there to make SURE everybody hears the warning if there is a tornado coming! [Big Grin]

Seriously, now... How often do they blow it? If it's not a warning signal of some kind and they blow it on a regular basis, I'd be complaining too!

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 07-30-2004, 10:07 AM:

Well down here we dont get too many tornadoes. Thats more up in Brads area. And hurricanes dont strike without warning, so we dont have sirens, or at least I've never heard any.

Posted by Christian Volpi (Member # 2370) on 07-30-2004, 11:24 AM:

Nebraska gets riddled with tornadoes each year and we have sirens all over the place. The sirens are tested the first Wednesday of every month in my home town and while the movie is going you can't hear it in the auditorium. In fact, you can barely hear it inside the lobby. I keep a weather radio in my office in case something drastic were to happen.

Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 07-30-2004, 02:15 PM:

quote: Jeremy Fuentes
so we dont have sirens

Yeah you do Jeremy, Along IH 37 on the edge of all the refineries and they do test them all the time.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-30-2004, 05:23 PM:

Lawton has many large tornado sirens installed across the area, but none stand immediately next any movie theaters.

I suppose the sirens are okay to have in the city, but they are often not used for the correct purposes. If we even have a severe thunderstorm the sirens will be sounded. This is due to an incident that happened in 2000. We had a severe storm west of the city that damaged a bunch of homes in the expensive Pecan Valley subdivision. Straight line winds of more than 100mph did a lot of damage and left many residents in Lawton without electricity for days. However, no tornado siren was sounded during this storm. Several emergency management people were given no end of hell over this. The residents in that subdivision swore it was a tornado, in spite of the fact it was not.

It is typical idiot reaction. Any storm that causes damage just has to be a tornado. The bad storm is somehow not a truly severe storm unless a funnel comes out of it.

So now we have this very harmful "they're crying wolf" bullshit with the tornado siren. Many people already don't take the sirens seriously. One of these days a real tornado is going to hit Lawton and some people are going to get killed for not heeding the sirens.

In truth, I don't think tornado sirens are all that effective. I could sleep through one. When I lived in south Georgia, a tornado hit town in the middle of the night and tore up the area just down the block from where I lived. I slept through the whole thing!

This is why a NOAA Weather Radio is a good investment. Keep a battery in it in case power gets knocked out during a storm. It will sound off just like an alarm clock if there is a severe thunderstorm warning or a tornado warning.

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 07-30-2004, 09:40 PM:

quote: William T. Parr
Yeah you do Jeremy, Along IH 37 on the edge of all the refineries and they do test them all the time.

Shows how much I know.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 08-03-2004, 08:03 AM:

When I was a kid back in the 1960's the city tested the air-raid sirens the first tuesday of every month at noon. They only ran them for about a minute.

I've not heard any of them being run at all in years, though they are still installed on buildings, schools, etc.

The ones around here are Thunderbolts by Federal. There is one on a pole right behind a burned out grocery store building that is probably going to be destroyed when the site renewal begins. I'd love to have it. I wonder who to contact about aquiring it?

Boy, you never know what you will find on Film-Tech!

Posted by Matthew Bailey (Member # 601) on 08-03-2004, 06:24 PM:

Glad you asked. You can contact the city or post in the Q&A forum at www.airraidsirens.com .