The End of an Era: The Siren

I live so close to the New Cumberland Fire Department that if there were ever an emergency at my house, the firefighters could run to my house.  That's a bonus of living so close.  One thing that is not a bonus is the siren.

We've stuck it out over the years, figuring that the loud siren was part of life.  It was for the public good, so surely we could live with it, just as others had for years before us.  Anyone, who lives within earshot of it, knows the inconvenience of it going off between 10 pm and 7 am.  It usually sounds two to three times in 10 minute intervals.  Try getting back to sleep after that.  And if it goes off around 5 am, well, you might as well just stay up.  Losing a little sleep is nothing compared to sacrifice our firefighters give or to what the people who need their help are going through.  Those of us who live nearby, complain, but we realize the siren is for the benefit of the public welfare.

The New Cumberland Fire Siren

Recently, a neighbor told me the siren was going to be phased out.  I thought that was wishful thinking, but after contacting the New Cumberland Fire Department and Exelon, the parent company of Three Mile Island, I found out that it was true.  Eventually, the old siren will be shut down permanently and the recently installed new siren will only be sounded for testing once or twice per year or during an actual TMI emergency.

Last October, Exelon announced that it would replace all 96 sirens in the 10 mile radius around it's Three Mile Island Nuclear plant.  Here in New Cumberland the new siren was placed next to the old,one, behind the Fourth Street fire station, in December of 2011.  A feature of the new siren is that it has a battery back-up.  As recently as late March, the new siren was tested.

New Siren being placed December 2011

How will the fire department members be notified of emergency calls?  All active firefighters will now be given pagers.  The funding for the new pager system is being made possible by a $5,000 grant to the fire department by Three Mile Island/Exelon Corporation.  I was informed by Ralph DiSantis, of Exelon, that as of this article, the funds have not yet been given to the fire department, but they plan to do so in the very near future.

Jeff Gouldy, the Deputy Chief for the New Cumberland Fire Department, was kind enough to answer my questions regarding this matter.  He told me, "Once we have received the new pagers and we verify they are working correctly, the old siren will no longer sound for fire department emergencies.  The old siren will continue to sound for the TMI emergencies until the new siren is activated.  You should stop hearing the old siren for fire department emergencies in the next few months."

Deputy Chief Gouldy offered some history on the use of the sirens in New Cumberland.  He shared with me that in the early 1970's, there were 2 sirens in the borough.  Many of you may remember one of the sirens was at the old station on 4th Street, and the other was located at 16th and Elm.  Into the early 1980's, both sirens would blow for any emergency call.  The sirens had a code to them.  For medical calls, it blew once; for auto accidents, it blew twice; and for fire calls, it blew five times.  Back then, every fire fighter and EMT relied on those sirens.  The 16th and Elm siren stopped working sometime in the 1990's and was eventually taken down.  He didn't know when the sirens were initially installed.

Thanks to technology, and the generous donation from Exelon, the New Cumberland fire siren will become obsolete and go the way of eight track tapes, typewriters and horse drawn carriages.  The next time the siren awakens you in the middle of the night, you can rest more easily knowing that this might be the last time it you hear it.

Thank you to New Cumberland Fire Department Deputy Chief Jeff Gouldy and Ralph DiSantis of Three Mile Island/Exelon Corporation for the information they provided for this entry.  An additional thank you to the members of our Fire Department for their service and dedication to our community.  (And thanks to my neighbor for tipping me off!)