George Park Thunderbolt 1000AT Revisited

[Antiwhoknows]

I went to George Park in Grand Island since it sounded like it had been fixed when I was at a different siren a while back. Ends up the coupler was put back on the standpipe and the blower frame is now bolted to the concrete pad it sits on. It's a pretty common thing around here. What happens is that they get hit with riding lawn mowers when the park people are mowing and it slides the blower over so the pipes don't line up and the coupler comes off.

Anyway, here's the video. http://youtu.be/-dGoycpcyag

[Jim Z]

riding mowers aren't that fast, you think they could manage to miss the giant yellow box sitting right next to a utility pole.

[Andys Live WX]

I gotta believe that mower has a pretty gouged up deck if the idiot operating it doesn't notice a big yellow box.

[Antiwhoknows]

The corner of this one's blower cover is pretty bent up and has been that way for a while. The blower on the one at Ryder Park was also hit hard enough to move the blower over and disconnect the two pieces of standpipe.

[holler]

That's why I put all of mine on a platform. The thought of lawnmowers bashing a blower box I repainted keeps me awake at night.

[ver tum]

I don't think that's very common around here. We only have one Thunderbolt that I know of that sounds like it may have a disconnected coupler. I guess that either the lawn mower operators know not to hit the blower boxes on ours, or the blower boxes may be bolted to their concrete pads.

[Antiwhoknows]

That's why I put all of mine on a platform. The thought of lawnmowers bashing a blower box I repainted keeps me awake at night.

Not that it probably matters to you, but those two have only been hit one time each, and it never scratched their paint. It was fairly recent on both of them. In fact, it made the color brighter where they were hit because it rubbed off some dirt.

[Thun-1003guy]

If they were mounted like this it wouldn't be a problem, also deters vandalism. This Thunderbolt is in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. I would love to own that house underneath this giant. I wonder if having that siren there depreciates the value of that house.

[Antiwhoknows]

If someone wants to vandalize something, they will find a way. None of the ones here have been vandalized in the 30+ years they've been around, and the pipes wouldn't have a problem if they wouldn't use these stupid things. Some of them just come off because of either wind blowing the poles, causing the standpipe to move and slowly work the coupling off. They make a good seal, but need to be longer so they don't come off so easily.

[Thun-1003guy]

Having a Thunderbolt double pole mounted would be a lot harder to vandalize, no one is going to try and climb up onto that platform, the controls are also mounted about 8 feet off the ground. Just a better set up than having the blower on the ground without fencing around it. However when those Tbolts were installed, I'm pretty sure concerns of vandalism were lower.