The Siren Board

As I had mentioned one other time in this thread, this school year is the final year Whitaker Elementary is in operation (as well as Brent, Finneytown's other elementary school) before the new Finneytown Elementary School opens this fall. While Brent is going to be converted to the new district offices, Whitaker will unfortunately be demolished in a few years. On Thursday afternoon, a farewell open house was held at Whitaker for people to walk around and look at the school as well as facts and memorabilia. Below is an old picture of the school from 1957 they had posted, and in that rectangle I drew, you can just barely see the old Thunderbolt in its original form (yellow and long stand pipe). I know it's hard to confirm color with a black and white picture, but I've heard that it was yellow back then. When a big addition was built on to the school and the building had other major renovations around 1999, the Thunderbolt was repainted gray and given a short stand pipe like how most of you remember it from recent years. I was even told by one guy on YouTube who went to school here in the 90s that it went from being a 1000T to a 1000 in this process, and most of you will remember that it went to being a 4/5 port 1000T when the chopper needed to be replaced in 2009.

1957 whitaker by carexpertandy, on Flickr

Also, here is a 1996 aerial view of the school I pulled off of CAGIS, you can tell by the shadow that it was on a long stand pipe:

1996 whitaker by carexpertandy, on Flickr

Also, I submitted the YouTube video of this siren taken by Bill Grooms (sirenfan1000 here, amtrak3501 on YouTube) to be part of a "Whitaker Through The Years" video being put together by the PTA. He took a way better video of it than I did. They were taking submissions of photos, videos and memories through a Google Form, and it may have been rather foolish of me to submit that video, but I will let you all know if they use it or not!

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Resident of a county with big a mixture of sirens, but in the process of being replaced.

Sorry about all of the consecutive posts, but here is a story about Middletown activating their sirens yesterday after unconfirmed reports of a tornado:

https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/mi ... ?_amp=true

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Resident of a county with big a mixture of sirens, but in the process of being replaced.

This is more of having to do with the Miami Valley area, but WHIO ran an I-Team investigation of area communities without sirens, including my own, Bellbrook (which we are now considering purchasing warning sirens, it is down to a matter of how we will pay for them). Also included was Champaign County and a few other areas in the Miami Valley. I thought this segment was well-done compared to other news reports in the past which have been very heavy on pushing the phone alerts.

You can find the article and video here: https://www.whio.com/news/investigation ... BTXI7WTP4/

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sirenfreak57
Owner of a Allertor 125 Control Cabinet, EOWS Driver, and other odds and ends.
My YouTube Channel | Summit County Siren Map | Cuyahoga County Siren Map

fire_freak_57 wrote: *

Thu May 26, 2022 12:00 am

This is more of having to do with the Miami Valley area, but WHIO ran an I-Team investigation of area communities without sirens, including my own, Bellbrook (which we are now considering purchasing warning sirens, it is down to a matter of how we will pay for them). Also included was Champaign County and a few other areas in the Miami Valley. I thought this segment was well-done compared to other news reports in the past which have been very heavy on pushing the phone alerts.

You can find the article and video here: https://www.whio.com/news/investigation ... BTXI7WTP4/

I saw that! It was well done. John Bedell did a great job on that, going really in-depth on why different communities did and didn’t have sirens, and what the best way is to receive alerts in severe weather. I like WHIO, even though they’re a “competitor” to my station. I currently work for Dayton 24/7 Now (ABC 22/FOX 45/WKEF) as a videographer.

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Josh Reed
21, Resident of Ohio


Owner of a Federal Thunderbolt 1000BT, an AR Timer, and a gray 12 volt siren.

My YouTube Channel