Hennessey Town Trustees voted last week at the regular meeting to issue a request for a bid to replace all of the storm sirens in town that were installed in 1956. This was originally voted on in September 2018 but was not acted upon because an OG&E plan was needed. Mayor Bert Gritz said, “This will replace all of our storm sirens. There are currently 5. The siren on the water tower is not functioning. It has been there for 67 years. The ones near the school and on Oakwood Dr. were installed in 1973, the others in town were bought used from Stillwater and are about 20 years old.” This new plan will replace several and relocate others to offer better coverage.
Siren Locations
The proposed locations include 625 N. Arapaho, the SE corner of Iowa and Walnut St. (replacing existing sirens), E 2nd St on the Senior Citizen property, the SW corner of the 200 block of W. 6th St., and the W end of Ike’s Ave. in Ike’s Acres. A different electronic siren would be placed in the 100 block of West 1st St. This one can play chimes at noon and also be a public address speaker during events.
Gritz explained that the current system is activated with a phone line and is subject to outages. The new system is activated via wireless radio and would have battery backup in case of power outages. Gritz said, “It will do a self-test daily without making a sound. The system could be activated via 2-way radio from the field by police or fire if needed.
