Looking for St. Louis (Mo.) area siren enthusiasts

[FedTB]

I'm checking to see how many St. Louis area siren enthusiasts are out there and if they remember any locations of pre-1982 siren locations. I say "pre-1982" because that's the year that St. Louis County installed 200-plus Whelen WPS-3016 and WPS-2000 sirens. A lot of these replaced old T-Bolt 1000's, 2T22's and SD-10's.

For example (if you're from the St. Louis area) do you remember the T-Bolt 1000 sirens on Baptist Church Road, or at Bernard Elementary School? These had the blower boxes actually mounted about 5 feet up the telephone poles that they sat on. How about the T-Bolt on top of Brentwood City Hall? Remember it was painted white? How about the one on Chambers Road in Moline Acres? Or the one along Hwy. 367 in Spanish Lake?

I'm trying to find out exactly what year these T-Bolts mentioned, along with the several other ones specifically purchased by St. Louis County Civil Defense, were installed. I'm guessing installations took place in the mid-to-late 1950's, perhaps even as late as 1960.

Any information will be appreciated. Thanks!

[Adam Pollak]

Don't forget Berkeley's old 5T, which was up, but disconnected as of a year ago. I know before the county takeover there were lots of old mechanicals everywhere. (I hope none of this is info you told me that I am regurgitating to you). I know Clayton had a T-Bolt in front of Concordia and one downtown. Ladue had an SD-10 at a park. Manchester has at least one 2T22 left. Beidgeton, Florissant, Hazelwood, Kirkwood, Frontenac, Glendale, Black Jack, and St. Ann still have T-Bolts up.

That is weird to me that Bernard ES would have had a T-Bolt at it since it is in an unincorporated area. As far as I knew, all the sirens installed before the county takeover were done by each individual city. The methods and locations of installations generally follow for the old sirens in each of their respective cities.

I did some searching though the city of St. Louis's library and also found records of old siren systems that were active in the 1950s. I need to have a super scanning day of old stuff, but many of the cities in the county had multiple sirens. University City might have had something around 12 sirens in its own system at one time.

I have pictures of all (minus maybe 4 sirens I could not find) the sirens in St. Louis County's system, as well as a few other stragglers, such as old fire sirens (Model 2, STH-10, (Crestwood's old STL-10)), and the Model 5 siren at the prison out on old US 66. We definitely need to have a great compiling of information day sometime, as this is my last year here, and I'm sure we both have a lot of information that we could share. As a side note, Wash U is in the process of installing its own campus siren system, in a way that I greatly disagree with, but I'll see what happens with it before I go off on their plan.

As a side note, the amount of complete devastation via buyouts and eminent domain from actual (and failed theoretical) Lambert Airport expansion has had such drastic effects on the urban landscape of North County. Even comparing road maps to satellite images to bird's eye views on Local Live, the number of neighborhoods razed for both airport expansion and for private development is truly amazing.

EDIT: I just saw your other post making mention of Berkeley's 5T. The airport owns the property and knocked down the entire old complex, but when I was there a year ago, the siren was still there.

[FedTB]

Adam, thanks for the reply.

Most of the old T-Bolt 1000's that St. Louis County installed were in the unincorporated areas. Cities like Florissant, Berkeley and Hazelwood installed their own T-Bolts, 2T22's, etc.

I did not know about the Ladue SD-10. Very interesting! Do you remember which park? Webster Groves had 2 SD-10's that I stumbled across in about 1980: one at Murcdoch Ave. and Big Bend Rd., which is now the site of a Whelen WPS-3016, and over off of Old Watson Rd. near Elm Ave., mixed in with some houses. There was another SD-10 on Lindbergh Blvd. near Olive Blvd. back in the early 1980's. I'm not sure if that was a St. Louis County siren or a Creve Coeur siren. And there was a 2T22 some years ago on Creve Coeur Mill Rd. near Marine Ave. in unincorporated St. Louis County. That's no longer there but a Whelen WPS-4003 is nearby where it used to stand.

I do remember the Clayton T-Bolts. Glendale's T-Bolt is a 1000; I filmed it with my camcorder a few yeras ago. Great sounding siren!!!

[FedTB]

I forgot to ask: What kind of siren system is Wash U installing? Southeast State in Cape Girardeau installed 4 or 5 Modulators on their campus a few years back. I wonder if Wash U will install the same???

[Adam Pollak]

Well, since I am on campus now and have a decent break of time...
I originally brought the issue up back in 2005 about our problems with warning. My campus straddles St. Louis County and St. Louis City, the two of which are independent of each other. There is a city tornado siren, Whelen 2807 at the NE corner of campus (though lower in elevation than the campus on its hill) and there is a county Whelen 4000 about a quarter of a mile from the SW corner of campus. These two systems are activated separately and St. Louis County has a much more lenient activation policy in that they will set off the sirens if there is a tornado warning for an adjacent county and then again when the warning is itself for St. Louis County. This means you could have a siren going off multiple times on half the campus, and no siren going off at all on the other half....not that our campus is even all that large.

So other than for the obiovus use in campus emergencies such as a shooter, Wash U had the great idea to tie the new siren system so that they would activate every time either the county or city set their own sirens off, as well as teh capability to be activated just by Wash U. So they want to have sirens set to at least 2 different frequencies and tone sets (possibly even 3 would be necessary). Esepcially when they need to have live voice capability and I'm sure SCADA, I think wiring up a system that way would be asking for more trouble than ever. It will also lead to the sirens being way overactivated, which is the exact reason why many colleges control their own siren systems, even within a city or county that has a large system. I would think that they would go with Whelens since the city uses all Whelen 2800s and the county is going over to Whelen 2900s now. I have not heard exactly how far they are on actually getting a system in place vs. just being in the planning stages, but I do plan on making sure they do it right.

As a side note on STL sirens...you know there are also a few old STL-10s floating around in the city that somehow missed the mass removal...but I'm not going to give those locations out on here right now There are also sirens scattered around the city at old factories, old military facilities, and at the current chemical plants along the riverfront.

[FedTB]

I know where the one STL-10 is along I-64 near KY98 radio.

I did not know about the sirens along the riverfront at the chemical companies, or at the old factories and old military facilities. What kind of sirens are at those locations?

There are also Whelen WPS-3016 sirens located at one of the chemical companies across the river in Sauget.

Adam, did you shoot the video of the O'Fallon, Illinois T-Bolt 1000 that sounds very sick? The one that's on YouTube?

[Adam Pollak]

Yes, that video on there is mine. I have some more videos I need to upload and sadly, most of the recordings I have made have been strictly audio without video, but I have a bunch from all over the area. Sauget has some Whelen 3016s at some of the chemical refinery sites. The Sauget FD also has an old Fedelcode Model 5. I have never been able to find any city sirens in either Alorton or Centreville though. Some of the reall unorganized old VFDs within those city limits do have old fire sirens up still. Those are extremely bad areas to be in and you can frequently cut cut off from an exit due to the heavy rail traffic loading/unloading and the switchyards. Aside from having 5 or so SD-10s, East St. Louis also has some other sirens scattered around put in by the various chemical factories. There is a 2001 somewhere on a main road and there is also an Alertronic or DSA by some church (I'd have to look through photos to tell you exactly which one). The old Melvin Price Support Center also has some sirens. They have a T-Bolt at an old building and there is a set of poles with a crossbar that has a Model 5 and a Model 2 on it. There is also a newer electronic siren near one of the housing areas there. Once you get over into IL there is a lot more tornado siren variety and a lot more towns ave their old fire sirens up and VFDs also have old sirens up. There are numerous VFDs between St. Clair and Madison Counties within city limits that have old sirens up still.

I don't know of any really old sirens around the Metro East other than the SD-10s in ESL and the sirens at Melvin Price. I know that Collinsville and some other cities have active tornado sirens that were old CD sirens, but no really old relics. I know that National City (National Stockyards) at one time had its own FD, but I've searched all around the remnents and have found nothing. I believe Fairmont City annexed all of what was National City. As a side note, Fairmont City has a T-Bolt 1003 at their FD and also a Model 2 out near Maryland Ave and Kingshighway. I don't think that St. Louis Parks Airport has much old stuff left, but I should explore around there some day to see if there is an old siren left. I think the one siren I am missing a photo of is the 2T22 in East Alton, which another board member brought up (I think possibly with a picture also)

[FedTB]

Those East St. Louis SD-10's are in very poor shape. I've seen them while out fire buffing with a friend of mine. They remind me of the neighborhoods they're located in: run down and out of luck.

That O'Fallon, Illinois sick T-Bolt 1000: is that the one close by the Home Depot off of I-64? One day about 5 years ago I was over that way, traveling along I-64, and I happened to glance around that exit, taking in the growth of the area, as it had been several years since I'd been over that way, and I saw the T-Bolt. I was surprised to see it. And there's more than 1 T-Bolt in O'Fallon? Where's the other one located?

[Adam Pollak]

That O'Fallon video I have is from the T-Bolt at O'Fallon High. They also set their STL-10 fire siren off at noon everyday. There is/was a broken T-Bolt at Central Elem School, which is near the Route 50/I-64 exit. I have almost all the STL area sirens marked out on a map book and in a giant giant Excel file with all my photos, but I never put O'Fallon's in there, so this is somewhat off memory. There is an Alertronic in their system and I also believe a 2001 on the north end of the city. One of the other schools in the city also has a T-Bolt, but I don't remember which one.

Last time I was in Shiloh they had their T-Bolt 1003 and a new 2001 up at their village hall.

Swansea has a mix of sirens with an EOWS*408, a Model 2, and I think an STH-10 also, plus a Whelen 4000.

Fairview Heights is all Whelen 2800s, but they used to have an old system of all T-Bolts. The old Fairview FD has their Model 5 still up, but the building is no longer a fire station.

Troy has a T-Bolt or 2 still up, but they are being replaced by T-128s.

The city of Belleville installed Whelen 4000s, but the Signal Hill FD and Northwest FPD, which are both partially in the city of Belleville, have installed their own 2001 tornado sirens.

Granite City has a system with a bunch of Whelen 2800s, but there is also a Modulator in near one school, which I have been unable to figure out.

Collinsville has a bug mix of sirens with STH-10s, 2T22s, SD-10s, and Modulators.

Wood River is switching over to Whelen 4000s, but they still have some of their old T-Bolts up, though they might be gone by now and some of the installations looked ready to fall over.

Glen Carbon has a system of Whelen 2800s, but the FPD has old STH-10 fire/tornado siren still up from before the new system.

As far as I know, neither Alton nor Godfrey ever installed sirens, though I know there has been talk on and off about it.

Edwardsville has a system of Whelen 4000s and there are some sirens on the SIUE campus. The campus is also unique in that they have brand new Model As mounted inside of buildings for interior tornado warnings.

From what I have found driving around, Maryville and Pontoon Beach each only have one siren (4000 and 2800) but they very well could have other ones scattered around their strange municipal boundaries.

Cahokia has 4 2001s in the city.

Columbia has an STH-10 and 2 Model 5s. That was as of a few years ago and they were in the process of researching a new siren system cause those 3 sirens only gave minimal coverage.

[vortexofmisery]

I am a fellow St. Louis area siren enthusiast. I have photographed many of the sirens you guys mentioned including ones in Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Granite City, East Alton and other areas. I have noticed that the small town of St. Jacob, IL has a new Whelen Vortex installed, along with an old Model 5. Bethalto has also installed at least 2 new Whelen 4004's to mix in with a FS 2001 in the middle of town. Here is the links to my postings of St. Louis area sirens.

Jefferson County, MO pics
http://airraidsirens.com/forums/viewtop ... highlight=

Madison County, IL pics (don't forget to check page 2 for more pics)
http://airraidsirens.com/forums/viewtop ... highlight=