BY LEW MOORES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Every community in Hamilton County will have converted to new technology for triggering civil defense sirens when Mount Healthy gets its single siren working by the end of October.
The process for converting to radio signals began almost two years ago when Cincinnati Bell said it was discontinuing using telephone-line technology to set off the sirens in severe weather. There are about 175 civil defense sirens in Hamilton County, with 62 of them in the city of Cincinnati. They are typically sounded to warn of severe weather, such as tornadoes.
Most of the 49 political jurisdictions in the county have at least one siren, and all were asked in 1996 to convert from land lines to radio signals.
"We're in the process of finalizing installation," said Don Maccarone, director of the Hamilton County Emergency Management Agency.
Communities bear the cost of converting, about $3,500 per siren. Mount Healthy is moving the location of its siren from the Cincinnati Bell building at Hamilton and Madison avenues to City Hall on Perry Avenue.
"It's a pretty old unit," said Tim McInerney, safety service director for Mount Healthy.
"We're afraid to pick it up off the roof. It may fall apart. It's big and there's a lot of bird-nesting in it. Our intention is to buy a new unit."
Mr. McInerney said the city has already paid for the conversion unit to radio control but is looking at whether it can use an old fire siren on City Hall as the civil defense siren.
"He's working on getting that accomplished," Mr. Maccarone said. "So they're in good shape. I think they'll be ready to go here very soon."
Converting to radio control means the county has more flexibility in being able to activate and test the sirens. They can be activated individually or in clusters rather than countywide, which is all the land-lines technology permits.
"With land lines, it was all or none," Mr. Maccarone said. "It's just like a light switch. You turn them on or you turn them off."
Because of that, even something geographically confined like a hazardous-material spill or leak would mean activating all of the county's sirens.
