St. Louis looking to make $4M upgrade to emergency siren system
ST. LOUIS – The City of St. Louis is planning to modernize its 60 emergency system sirens within city limits.
Sarah Russell from the Commission of Emergency Management for the City of St. Louis says not all of the sirens are properly functioning.
“I can tell you that we have one that we’ve been trying to get replaced because it was knocked off a pole, so there is at least one that is not working,” Russell said. “There are a couple of others that had some components that were damaged.”
Not only does the current system look dated, but the aging technology comes with another set of challenges as well.
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“We don’t get a system response back to us. It doesn’t respond to us and tell us how it is performing, which is very difficult to be able to tell how a system is performing when it doesn’t tell you that,” Russell said.
The city is currently looking for bids from companies to replace the entire system, with a price tag of $3.9 million.
“As well as a new audio study to make sure that we have sirens placed in the right place, we know that there has been a lot of development in our city in the decades since our current system was installed,” Russell said. “So we want to make sure that we’re reaching and have the appropriate coverage for the entire city.”
The outdoor sirens are one key component of safety, according to Russell, with the other component being the NotifySTL emergency alert system.
The city is also sending PSA’s in six different languages to get more residents to download the app.
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