Springfield, IL

Springfield Warning System
T-128 located at Veterans and Lindbergh.
Type	Municipal
Location	Springfield, Illinois
Status	Active
Testing dates	First Tuesday of the month
Testing times	10:00 AM.

The Springfield Warning System is a system comprising of 50 T-128s. The system covers the city of Springfield and several outlying communities. The sirens are activated by the Springfield Fire Department in Springfield.

History

First Sirens

Stratton Building Thunderbolt

In late 1956, the City of Springfield purchased and installed 4 Thunderbolt 1000s throughout Springfield. The four locations included the Allis-Chalmers plant, DuBois Elementary School, the Pillsbury Plant and the Stratton Building. When tested on January 26, 1957, the sirens were barely audible in some parts of the city but it had the right effect.

System Expansion

Old System Coverage Map

As the city expanded, the need for sirens also grew. The city installed around a dozen or Thunderbolt 1000Ts as well as SD-10s. There was also a Model 5 near Knights Action Park on the West side of Springfield. The city also had several EOWS-612s and 2001s installed through out the city. Matthew Stanley from The Siren Archive has photos of a few of the sirens through out Springfield. These can be view on The Siren Archive under the Sangamon County category.

Downfall of the System

The system worked well until the twin EF2 tornadoes struck Springfield on March 12, 2006. The sirens worked fine for the first storm but it knocked out power to 75% of the city. When the second storm hit, only a handful of the newer sirens with battery backup sounded (the Thunderbolts and SD-10s lacked this feature).

After the Storm

After the tornadoes silenced the sirens, the city began planning to replace the sirens.

New Sirens

Originally, the city went to Federal for offers on a new siren system. In the end, ASC had the better bid and the city made a $983,000 contract with Wireless USA for the sirens. In the end, 50 new T-128 sirens with battery backups were to be installed. By the end of November, the new siren system was installed and tested with the old system dismantled.

Old Sirens

The story of the old siren system doesn't end at them getting removed. In June 2006, the City Council declared the old sirens to be surplus property. On March 12, 2007, then Mayor Davlin donated the usable SD-10s to surrounding communities. The communities that received the sirens included Chatham, Curran, Riverton, Spaulding and Virden. Many of the sirens where badly damaged during removal and storage and those sirens were destroyed. Chatham and Curran currently don't have any SD-10s in their system with Chatham having a Sentry 10V and Curran with no sirens.

In 2011, the remaining old sirens were auctioned off. For photos of the old sirens at the city lot, one can refer to the Siren Board post. The sirens were in rather bad shape from storage and the way they were stored. The Thunderbolts had the standpipes uncovered and the horns pointing up. The other sirens were badly dented and in terrible condition. Oddly enough, the motors on the old sirens were refurbished a year prior to their removal.

After the sirens were sold, there were several posts about the Thunderbolts and how they were basically destroyed while in city storage. This can be seen on the Poorly Maintained Sirens thread or this post.

Miscellaneous

Some odds and ends that don't fit anywhere above.

Fun Facts

• The original 4 air raid sirens were Thunderbolt 1000s and 2 of the 4 still remain in Springfield.
• The downtown Thunderbolt is a 1000T and it's chopper level was set to 3 or 180v. It can be heard clearly in a video from the night of March 12, 2006. It still stands alebit hornless.
• The remaining 1000Ts were a mix of single phase and three phase.

Media

• Downtown Thunderbolt 1000T in action
• SD-10 in action
• EOWS-612 Test