garrick92 said:
We have one of those sirens near us, in fact about 100 yards from where i now sit at the computer. We live in a completely urban area, with no quarries for at least 12 miles. The siren is in plain sight, on the top of an old telegraph type pole and as far as i am aware might have been there since WWII. I am certainly aware of it sounding regularly since the late 1960s.
It goes off every now and then, maybe every 3 months or so I hear it (of course it may be more often and im not here) I last heard it in the Spring.
I was told it was a test for the nuclear siren ! Later on I was also told that it was a warning for when the river was in flood!
I'm sure neither are correct. Does anyone else hear an old type siren go off regularly ?
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zardozzz said:
Here in the US midwest (Dayton Ohio area), the siren system is primarily maintained for natural - particularly weather-related - emergencies nowadays.
As I understand it, the Cold War era Civil Defense infrastructure has been absorbed into the overall Homeland Security apparatus, and subsidiary jurisdictions (states, cities, etc.) are responsible to establish and maintain emergency plans and capabilities. Because of this, I don't think there's a uniform nationwide US siren protocol at present.
In the 20 years I've lived here, nearby sirens have been activated in the classic 'imminent attack' mode (alternating rising / falling pitch) only 3 times that I can recall - each time in relation to tornados touching down locally.
The overall metro area siren system is regularly tested at noon on the first Monday of the month, for only a few minutes. This protocol is how it's done here; it's not a national standard. I've seen emergency preparedness documentation from other jurisdictions that mention siren tests on a less frequent basis (e.g., annually).
paulsamotis
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The sound of this siren can be heard drifting across north Bristol at times! :shock:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z__WsHGroFg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z__WsHGroFg
staticgirl
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The Lincolnshire coastal towns' flood sirens used to be an old WW2 siren which was re-purposed. History does not record how many elderly holidaymakers who had suffered the Luftwaffe bombardments of their Midlands towns had a heart attack when the sirens went off. Neither is there a record of how many people get a fright when the coastguard flares go up either. I believe both have been replaced with other technologies in recent years.
My old primary school used to have these panics every now and again but I forget the detail. Do modern schools have them or have they been subsumed into the 'peedo-panics' (sic) that you get every now and then.
My old primary school used to have these panics every now and again but I forget the detail. Do modern schools have them or have they been subsumed into the 'peedo-panics' (sic) that you get every now and then.
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Modern schools disguise them in the form of 'drills.' At least in the U.S., on top of fire drills, tornado drills, whatever, they now have lockdown drills, in which they pretend as though a shooter has entered the building, and act out what they would do. The last time I was in one as a practice, the kids were either loud and not taking it seriously, or scared because they weren't sure whether or not it was was the real thing.
I also worked at a camp that did sort of a panic exercise. They wanted very badly to teach the young campers about pool safety, to the extent that they had an older camper dive into the shallow end of the pool and pretend to break her neck and have to be rescued and secured on a stretcher by the lifeguards. The intent, of course, was to teach the children not to do this, and most of the kids seemed to get over it pretty quickly when they found out it was fake; however, I remember having to repeatedly reassure one camper who suffered from Mild Mental Retardation, as she just did not understand that it was faked and the girl wasn't really hurt. it was all pretty nasty, in my opinion.
I also worked at a camp that did sort of a panic exercise. They wanted very badly to teach the young campers about pool safety, to the extent that they had an older camper dive into the shallow end of the pool and pretend to break her neck and have to be rescued and secured on a stretcher by the lifeguards. The intent, of course, was to teach the children not to do this, and most of the kids seemed to get over it pretty quickly when they found out it was fake; however, I remember having to repeatedly reassure one camper who suffered from Mild Mental Retardation, as she just did not understand that it was faked and the girl wasn't really hurt. it was all pretty nasty, in my opinion.
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Lockdown Drills.
Is this most U.S. schools? I've never heard of the practice before.
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There are multiple states that mandate lockdown policies be in place and lockdown drills be performed. I can't find any comprehenisve listing for which states do this (either now or in some prior year).
To the best of my knowledge, there's no such mandate at the national level. Policies and drills (like most everything else in the American educational system) are specified at the state and local levels.
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Thanks.
As a parent that would frighten me. Obviously a drill is better than no drill if there is a risk, but the fact that the risk exists at a level beyond negligible is troubling.
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Here's how I recall the school safety mania evolving ...
The 1999 Columbine shootings shocked the country and led to a lot of chatter. I don't recall many school systems reacting directly (e.g., with drills) to the notion of such an event in general, but there did seem to be a lot more attention paid to identifying and monitoring potentially violent students.
The 2007 Virginia Tech shootings were the next significant nationwide 'pulse' on school shootings and safety. From where I sat, the main effect observed was to spread post-Columbine K-12 paranoia to the college / university level.
The incident that really ignited proactive school safety measures was the Sandy Hook (Newtown CT) shooting spree in December 2012. This incident had two features that made it more troubling than the earlier highly-publicized events:
(1) The shooter was an intruder from outside rather than a student or anyone associated with the school, and ...
(2) The shooter targeted young children rather than teens / college-age young people.
Of course, there had been, and still were, similar incidents elsewhere. I'm just saying I believe the nationwide concerns were mainly motivated by these three key incidents.
As far as I know, the most widespread efforts to improve school anti-shooter safety (e.g., lockdown drills) were ignited by Sandy Hook.
The 1999 Columbine shootings shocked the country and led to a lot of chatter. I don't recall many school systems reacting directly (e.g., with drills) to the notion of such an event in general, but there did seem to be a lot more attention paid to identifying and monitoring potentially violent students.
The 2007 Virginia Tech shootings were the next significant nationwide 'pulse' on school shootings and safety. From where I sat, the main effect observed was to spread post-Columbine K-12 paranoia to the college / university level.
The incident that really ignited proactive school safety measures was the Sandy Hook (Newtown CT) shooting spree in December 2012. This incident had two features that made it more troubling than the earlier highly-publicized events:
(1) The shooter was an intruder from outside rather than a student or anyone associated with the school, and ...
(2) The shooter targeted young children rather than teens / college-age young people.
Of course, there had been, and still were, similar incidents elsewhere. I'm just saying I believe the nationwide concerns were mainly motivated by these three key incidents.
As far as I know, the most widespread efforts to improve school anti-shooter safety (e.g., lockdown drills) were ignited by Sandy Hook.
JamesWhitehead
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About a year ago, I was working in a UK Secondary School when a lockdown situation was declared. Some clown had appeared to threaten the Primary School down the road with a weapon; a car associated with him was being examined.
Needless to say, it created great excitement among the kids, who were receiving mad rumours as well as live news-coverage on their phones. My own response - given the lack of any formal lockdown policy - was to calm things down by attempting to ascertain exactly what was going on.
The internet on the overhead gave us access to the boring reality and my class was reassured - i.e. no more manic than usual. Needless to say, there was some SLT frowning at such a dangerous initiative: giving the kids an unedited view of events was evidently wrong in principle!
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Mythopoeika
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Yes...never give kids the facts...they might learn something!The internet on the overhead gave us access to the boring reality and my class was reassured - i.e. no more manic than usual. Needless to say, there was some SLT frowning at such a dangerous initiative: giving the kids an unedited view of events was evidently wrong in principle!
