Tornado siren pole wrecked by woodpeckers, Monroe County OKs replacement
Woodpeckers have caused a lot of damage to the wood pole where a Monroe County tornado siren is mounted, at American Legion Post 18 off 3rd Street.
In the 50-foot wood column with the white horn mounted on top, The B Square counted at least five big holes, each with an estimated diameter of around four inches.
That’s enough damage, confirmed by a structural engineer, that Monroe County’s emergency management director, Jamie Neibel, asked county commissioners to approve a nearly $40,000 contract with ERS Wireless to replace the whole facility.
Commissioners gave the contract unanimous approval at their regular meeting this past Wednesday (July 31).
The replacement hardware includes: a rotating electro-mechanical siren with a 130dB rating; a 50-foot wood pole; a Motorola mobile radio; antenna infrastructure; and a battery box with four batteries for backup power.
On Wednesday, when Neibel presented the item to county commissioners, she described the damaged pole as a situation “where public safety and nature have collided.”
Responding to questions from commissioners, Neibel said that the replacement pole will also be wood, not metal. That’s because if lightning strikes a wood pole, it generally does a little less damage to the siren—it might ruin just some of the internal components, but not necessarily the whole siren. The newly treated replacement pole should be less attractive to bugs, and therefore less attractive to woodpeckers, Neibel said.
At Wednesday’s meeting, commissioner Lee Jones thanked the American Legion for allowing the placement of the siren on their property. Jones said, “We appreciate the fact that the American Legion has been willing to host this. And I think it is important that we move quickly to rectify the situation.”
The damaged pole has had an impact on the American Legion’s lunchtime business—it’s open to the public for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. That’s because the parking spaces where the pole is projected to fall, if it were to fall, have been put off limits.
On its visit to the American Legion Post 18, The B Square spoke with Terry Quigley, who is a trustee of the post. Quigley indicated that there’s some sentiment on the board for the idea of not replacing the pole at all once it is removed. Dealing with the situation with the pole had been a lot of trouble, he said.
According to Neibel, the county government has placed the siren on the American Legion’s property through an easement, which means that the county has a legal right to put the siren there. But Neibel said she does not want to force the American Legion to accept the tornado warning siren if they really object. “If they really wanted it to be gone, we would oblige,” Neibel said. She added, “We certainly don’t want to do anything against anybody’s will.”
The siren itself did not sound for Friday’s regular monthly test, because it has been turned off since May 23. That’s because the siren rotates when it sounds, which would put additional stress on the pole.
If the siren at the American Legion were to be removed permanently, that would reduce the number of tornado sirens countywide from 47 to 46.
Neibel told The B Square that absent the American Legion siren, there is still adequate audible coverage for that area of the county, which is pretty dense with tornado sirens. About the idea of not having the siren in working order right now, Neibel said: ”We’re not putting anybody at risk—we’re just not optimal.”
Neibel’s judgments about the adequacy of audible coverage are aided by a map built by John Baeten, who is the county’s GIS coordinator, working out of the county surveyor’s office. The map shows a 1.2-mile radius around each of the sirens, which is a rough estimate of the audible area covered by one siren.
