One of South Jacksonville’s storm sirens remains out of commission. South Jacksonville Police Chief Eric Hansel updated the Board of Trustees Thursday on the status of the village’s storm warning siren located near the water tower on West Vandalia Road.
Ongoing problems with the siren have become more frequent over the last year, with the unit failing to operate when needed at times, as well as one time last year when it turned on but then wouldn’t turn off.
The siren is an older model and Hansel says parts are becoming harder to obtain. During the December trustee meeting, it was decided for Hansel to continue to look into options to fix the existing siren and procure bids for a new replacement.
Hansel says they have made some progress on a possible repair to get it back online. “On the 12th we met GTSI out there and ran a couple of tests including an audible test and function tests just to make sure it moved because the siren actually spins in a circle to actually put out the sound to everybody.
We think what is possibly wrong with it is the power supply which converts from 12 to 120 volts. So we pulled the power supply out, we pulled the motherboard out and they are going to test those in a controlled environment and see if that is the issue with it. Hopefully, we will get replacement parts for it and get it repaired until we can get a new replacement siren installed.”
Hansel says for now, the siren is not operational and he does not have an estimated time of when it could be back in service. Hansel says there are still ways residents in the area can be warned of possible weather emergencies, one of which is the Village’s Code Red mobile alert service.
“It is if they signed up for the weather warnings, if they didn’t sign up then they won’t get them. From where I’m at on West Vandalia, you can still hear the other two tornado sirens and the sirens in Jacksonville but it’s not as loud as it would be if there was one going over there.”
The Village of South Jacksonville is currently covered by three emergency storm sirens, one at the maintenance garage on Hardin Avenue, the one next to the water tower, and the newest unit which is located at the Love’s Truck Stop.
So far the village has received two bids for new replacement sirens ranging from $21,000 to $36,000. Hansel says he is still researching potential bids for a replacement. To find out more information about, or to sign up for the Code Red alert service, log onto southjacksonville-il.gov