Early Production FS 2001-SRNB | Short Alert | Richland County, OH | 6/26/19

[fire_freak_57]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jupeo-e67oI

Decided to visit one of Richland County's undocumented sirens: these early production 2001-SRNB's. Here's where things get interesting.

Back in 2002, Richland County placed an order with Federal Signal for 38 sirens, all 2001-SRN's. Of course, 2002 was the release year for the 2001-SRNB, so when the SRNB was released, Federal's solution was to simply put up SRNB's instead. These aren't your typical SRNB's though: these use the older 2001DC controller and cabinets, all remaining inventory for the 2001-SRN line, which was by this time no longer in production, so they used these type of cabinets and controllers as the newer cabinets had not yet been made (our guess is that Federal wanted to use up the remaining inventory they had). FS did not have the "2001-SRNB" sticker made yet either, so that's why they are absent on these units.

Of the 2001-SRN's Richland County ordered, only 5 SRN's were produced and installed before the SRN line was replaced with the SRNB (these SRN's are located in the small rural towns of Lexington and Bellville). The rest in the county are SRNB's, all small logo, with the same type of installation and controls. These were some of the first (if not THE FIRST) ever 2001-SRNB's to be installed in the field. Don't know why they're all battery powered only, probably to save costs is my best guess (unfortunately this means that a good amount of their sirens do not work, due to dead batteries, but EMA is trying to work on this as quickly as possible, but it is ultimately up for the communities in Richland County with the county sirens to report the problems to the EMA). Another interesting note, all sirens are programmed to rotate for several seconds after wind down, which is very interesting.

Joining me for this test was Chris L. (Fumikri06). We had a great time meeting up and I was glad to finally see one of these rare SRNB's in action. We weren't sure if it'd sound, but after a cacophony of DTMF tones, this thing fired up. Enjoy!

Richland County tests on the 4th Wednesday of every month around 4 PM. Should a siren not sound, the Richland County EMA wishes that you report it to their office, which can be reached via phone at (419)-774-5686 (faulty sirens only).

[fire_freak_57]

EDIT: Found some new information on Richland County's system of early production SRNB's.

This is an excerpt from the County Auditor's report from 2002, which ended on Dec. 31, 2002.

Information is as follows:

"A $422,000 grant from HUD allowed Emergency Management to purchase and place 38 new warning sirens in the County. The sirens are mainly used to warn of approaching tornados [sic]."

Of these 38 sirens, approximately 5 were SRN's, the rest were these early production SRNB's. Based on the information I dug up, these sirens were installed in early 2002, and were likely the first ever to be installed in the field.

[Valra Bellkeys]

Great video, really cool to see where the first SRNB possibly went!

[fire_freak_57]

Great video, really cool to see where the first SRNB possibly went!

Yes, as far as I am aware, these were in fact the first SRNB’s to be installed in a actual system.