Several of Broken Arrow’s sirens are approaching 15 and 20 years old in many cases, so they’re due for the upgrades.
BA’s emergency management team has a plan to replace the older storm sirens with new omnidirectional sirens. The advantage to those is they can be heard from all directions and once and they can cover a lot more ground. They also have fewer moving parts, so they’ll require less maintenance.
“We know the age of every siren in the City and have a plan to replace the older models. It’s just a matter of securing the funding to purchase and install the new omnidirectional sirens.” said General Services Director Lee Zirk.
The city will continue testing sirens every through severe weather season.
The sirens won’t be replaced all at once, but five sirens will be replaced each year. This will ultimately mean the replacements will have less of an impact on the city’s annual budget.
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