Hiya! I am the Head expert on the LA County Sirens and im currently having them repainted for LA Historic purposes as they are not going to come down unless they are in the way of new construction.... The first batch of Thirty 3 Horsepower sirens and Thirty 7 1/2 HP sirens went up 2 weeks after Pearl Harbor in January 1942... There were only 60 sirens then..... in 1952 after Russia tested its 1st Nuke Bomb LA COunty ordered an additional 96 SD-10 10HP Sirens and 69 500-TT rotation sirens that are also 10 HP... the 230 total sirens in LA County were its own entity! Incorporated Cities like Hawthorne, West Hollywood and Burbank had their own sirens and some were Thunderbolts which are also 10 HP... the sirens that looked like Crushed Birdhouses are 3 HP Fedelcode sirens... the taller Birdcage 7 1/2 HP sirens are a mix of dual tone, single low tone and high tone....I have inspected all 3 types and was amazed..most are dual tone however...All SD-10 sirens and 500-TT sirens are dual tone.... Hope this helps.... You will see all of these sirens repainted by the end of Summer 2020
@@kansasstatealerting2874Ik this is 3 years later but this guy isn’t joking, I saw that a model 3 had been repainted gray in Los Angeles. And a few more
The "rotating megaphone" would be a Federal Signal 500SHTTs. And those "House like Sirens" would be Federal Signal Model 5Ts The "Square looking sirens" would be Federal Signal SD-10s.
The rotating sirens are actually Federal Sign And signal 500shtt’s (Single Horn Two Tone) the “house” looking sirens are Model 5T’s and some are single tone Model 5’s,
It’s really sad that they don’t still use those sirens, I think it would be really cool to see them going off, also I think the megaphone head moving for no reason is really creepy
*im a siren fan and enthusiadt im happy you made this video cause i live in the los angeles county also i wanna tell you huntington beach has tsunami sirens that are active and torrance oil refinery sirens are active too*
Siren hunting really is a very rewarding activity. I've spent a few weekend days driving through small towns in MN to find unknown sirens not marked on the MN Siren locations map, and it's always just a fun rush to find another one, hiding right there in plain sight.
I'm from Fresno, CA. Even in Fresno they have some of these 50+ year old sirens still standing. It's true. I never noticed them until a couple years ago and wondered why they were there. All over California they were installed. A lot are still standing and I hope they stay standing to be honest.
Hey there. I'm also a fellow Fresnonite (if that's what you call them). I've noticed only one and it's on top of the old Veterans Memorial Museum in downtown. That one was the only one I've seen visually but from the siren maps there are multiple electric ones by Fresno Yosemite International Airport, but on maps there's one by the intersection of Walker Way and E Westover Ave. I'm not sure if you've seen that one. I moved to WV in 2016 but ever since i was a kid in the 2010s I always kept a keen eye on that certain siren as it stood out in my opinion. Just this comment in a way reopened the memory of that siren I always kept an eye on, as well as classified as a landmark. And yes I'm replying a year later, so I'm not sure if you'll see this.
And i've driven by that siren on Reseda for 11 years, it always rotates in the wind. Fun fact, Chrysler made Hemi powered V8 air raid sirens in the 60's.
And one of them is still up in Los Angeles ! But I have no idea where, I read that on another video about LA Sirens. Also these Chrysler sirens are the loudest ever made
I know about the Chrysler sirens, I nearly cried earlier because I watched one get removed in Beverly Hills. It’s so sad to see such a rare and unique siren get taken down.
I live in the chicago area and get excited to hear the sirens every first tuesday of the month. I visit montello Wisconsin a good amount, and on the fire department there they have a federal signal 3T22 that goes off everyday at 10pm for curfew.
That particular rotating siren was known for having issues with the drive belt for the rotation mechanism which is why it moved in the wind. The belt likely deteriorated and crumbled apart allowing the siren to move freely. Kind of like putting a car into neutral.
I always had a dream of wiring one up and seeing if it still worked. Most likely froze up from rust. I remember hearing them in the early 80s as a kid.
I recently found out thanks to a video, that in Long Beach in 2004, someone actually wired up one of the abandoned sirens and it worked ! Long Beach sirens were tied to the LA siren system so they stopped sounding at the same time that in LA. But some sirens would catch on fire if you plug them in, it depends on their state of disrepear, if the siren is too much rusted or not.
You would see these in the San Gabriel valley also. Anyway, when you heard the siren, you were supposed to tune your portable AM radio to 640 or 1240 Kcs (Khz) and take cover.
Thanks for this video,, i lived in Lawndale in the 1960s til the mid 1980s and remember hearing them wail every last Friday of the month at 10am as mentioned in the video which was the duck and cover routine during the school year. Near by in the same town of Lawndale there use to be a Federal Thunderbolt siren standing on the golf course of Alondra Park next to El Camino Junior College and that thing roared. Too bad the city took it down later in the 1980s.
Awesome video! In my city, among an active siren system, there is this one defunct Thunderbolt (a rotating siren) on top of an apartment building. I have observed the siren to not activate during tests, and an individual at the city's emergency management agency actually told me that it is no longer working or in service (and this does not cause a gap in siren coverage by in-service units). Curiously, however, on several occasions I have noticed the siren to be facing a different direction than it was on the previous time I saw it. Even so, it continued to remain silent and still during testing time. I suppose the wind probably moves the siren around, or people trespass onto the roof and move it themselves.
6:16 it could be the wind. They usually have belts on the rotator so it can’t spin freely. But since the siren was abandoned the belt could of rotted and plus, it was a windy night.
Not to mention those things had a piss poor design where to replace the belt you had to take the whole darn head apart which was a headache so often the belts were left to fall apart from rot or overtensioning resulting in either them failing to rotate upon activation or them to freely spin in the wind.
Answering one of the questions: Los Angeles does not maintain these sirens anymore. They’ve been completely inactive since the end of the Cold War, and will likely never be activated again. After the Cold War, Many towns and cities decided to use these sirens in other ways, most commonly for tornadoes in the central and Midwest US, or to warn of disasters at nuclear plants and refinery’s. They may also be used to warn of Hurricane, flood, fires, or even tsunamis. Some places are even installing new sirens, some of which are basically just giant speakers. Wear I live, we have multiple fire departments that use these sirens to call firefighters to the station. Hawaii recently began using the sirens for both air raids and tsunamis, in fear that North Korea may attack. Someone in the comments mentioned that Huntington Beach has tsunami sirens, so you may want to check that out. I can neither confirm nor deny that Huntington beaches sirens exist, because I don’t live anywhere near LA. Have fun siren hunting!
*yes Huntington Beach has sirens, but some are broken so the city are planning on upgrading and replacing them with electronic sirens. I live a city away from HB, but my city dosnt have any even though I'm a coastal city.*
They are all over California. I was born in Fresno and now live in the Bay Area. Both areas had old air raid sirens. The beach areas do have tsunami sirens in use and maintained. The inland air raid ones? Nope, they are not in use anymore in Cali, but they are standing everywhere here.
the sirens phone and power lines are cut and the single directional sirens aka the "megaphone" sirens used rubber belts to rotate the sirens which now have disintegrated leaving those sirens able to be swiveled by wind or other causes. they would also rotate 360 degrees and not back in fourth in s small radius but all of the sirens are inactive and very rusted
I lived in a small town on Vancouver Island Canada I remember at a local school field seeing a large hornlike thing on a 40 foot steel pipe pole. It was a Canadian designed CLM air raid siren installed in 1963 in the wake of the Cuban Missile.Crisis. this siren model was also made famous in the classic1980 comedy The Blues Brothers Movie starring John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, the thing was strapped on the roof of a cop car. In my town especially as a teenager in the 1970’s and 80’s I was creeped out by it hoping it would never power up. By the 90’s it was a rusted wreck and eventually removed. It had not been run since 1969.
A large majority of these sirens would still work, however many have not been tested in 30+ years. There is actually a very large group dedicated to sirens all across the country. It has been a life long hobby for many of us.
Grew up within earshot of Siren #108 in Northridge. They would be tested on the last Friday of the month at 10AM. If you stood outside, you could hear all the other sirens going off and echoing off each other across the Valley. Los Angeles County had a great civil defense program that included the sirens, perhaps most of them remain for future use - Now living in San Francisco, we have a good PA system that pumps in the siren sound every Tuesday at 12PM for emergencies mostly Tidal Waves.
Here's the siren types LA had: The tiny birdhouse sirens are the Fedelcode Mach 3Ls. The birdhouse sirens with a small vent in the middle are Fedelcode Mach 7Ls, and Mach 7s. The birdhouse sirens with the wide vents in the middle are Federal Sign & Signal Model 5ATs. The wire spool sirens are Federal Sign & Signal Model SD-10s. The rotating sirens are Federal Sign & Signal Model 500A-SHTTs.
Cool, loved your voiceover commentary! I have a keen interest in sirens, mainly in and around some of our secure hospitals of Broadmoor and Carstairs. Pls look me up if you have time.
I've always loved History and I've been obsessed with air raid sirens since I was 12 and I've also seen some move and I'm not sure if it was doing it on it's own or what
i remember a couple of years ago my mom and i took a trip to downtown los angeles and on our way there we passed by two SD-10’s on accident, i still remember where they stood, one was directly on a sidewalk, and the other was in a public square, both of them are still standing.
Those sirens are invisible lost in a big city just waiting for a siren enthusiast to take it home and restore it to it's full working condition! Wonder if those sirens are still there?
In some cities/states they have been upgraded and are tested weekly. When I was a kid in the 90's I used to stand under a really big one right before it would go off. It was an old cold war one and would suddenly make a loud click and vibrate.
I was born in Sacramento and lived in the Bay Area for 10 years. About once a year, my school would hold an air raid drill. That was because the cold war was still happening in the 1980's. When the alarm sounded, we would hide under our desks until the all clear signal was heard. As I grew older, this practice had another purpose... to protect us from falling objects in case a major earthquake struck. Little did we realize that the Loma Prieta earthquake would strike San Francisco 5 years later in 1989.
In Sacramento they have many old air raid sirens not in use and used as well. I was born in Fresno which is similar and we even have these old air raid sirens used and unused all over the place. Saw them but never cared to know why they were there. I'm now in the Bay Area and notice them in the urban parts of cities here as well. They seem to be all over California.
As a siren enthusiast it is good to know they are not going to get taken down but for your information the first siren is a Federal Signal 500-SHTT the second is a Model 5 the third is a 500-SHTT the fourth is a H.O.R Siro Drone or a Model 3 I can not tell the fifth is a SD-10. Also at the end you said a siren was moving right to left that is only the wind when it tests it rotates all the way around and does not go right to left it pretty much does a 360 turn.
Oh hi, you mentioned me. It is a 500-SHTT. The other sirens are: Model 7T, SD-10, and 8 port short A-Frame Fedelcode (commonly mistaken to be a Siro-Drone).
It's a good topic to hit on. As you learned, these sirens to warn the populace of an incoming or imminent attack. While some locations have no need to test them anymore, those of us who are impacted by extreme weather hear these go off once a month, some places once a week. Long have they been a multi-use alarm system for fire calls, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and other alerts, they still apply to the true purpose of their existence, for an attack against the US. If you haven't already, study in to the cold war. You might be surprised of what you can learn.
Alert!!! A Reminder Is Needed For Our Safety! Please Reconnect All Sirens Or Replace And Reconnect All Sirens! Some People Can’t Receive Warnings With Phones Today! A Siren Is Needed 5 Miles Apart From Each other! More People Will Be Safe Due To This! Please Listen And Be Ready For The Warnings And Open The Sirens! This Is The Best For All People!
I am the biggest fan of tornado sirens, Also one really old tornado siren been tested! I don’t know the name of the video, but I love tornados and tornado sirens
@Fox I live in Houston and there NONE here other than the ones in the suburbs around refineries which even then arent mechanical sirens rather electronic Whelens.
While, yes, Houston itself does not have a system of sirens, there are other places nearby that do. Rice and UH have their own systems, both of which are electronic, and as you mentioned, the suburbs have sirens which are also electronic. However, there are a few inactive Thunderbolts in the city limits of Houston, as well as an active Sireno Type 5 at the Fresno Fire Department. Although not tested, it's still a very cool sight to see!
The main reason the sirens are still standing is in case of emergency they will sound or if they are inactive people are just too lazy to take them down
at 6:40 you ask if the siren was being tested that night? Was it just the wind? From your video I can comfortably say that the siren was being tested by ONLY the wind. That model siren rotates to broadcast its warning tones, its not geared to do a side to side motion like someone shaking their head to signal "no". Below the siren assembly itself, one can see the glass insulators for the power feed. There are no power cables connected to the siren's power feed, which I guess at one time came from the utility pole in the same photo. That power feed is completely barren, so the siren has no electrical power and electricity alone operates it. What you saw, in my opinion, was a result of the force of the ambient wind's positive pressure against the surface area of the siren's head, resulting in visible motion. The same physical principles can be observed with wind driving a three blade turbine to generate electricity. My wordy explanation can be replaced simply with "that's a disconnected siren being blown around in the wind".
Nice vid! I remember seeing a 15' Yellow "Pole Siren" (thats what i called it) in Hayward, CA right behind the KFC off of Tennyson RD. Don't know when it was put up, but if i had to guess maybe 1941 or 1952? It's upper section was shapped like a large Cylinder, and had 4 "Ring Shrouds" around it. Never heard it go off as a Kid, never saw any more in Hayward besides that one. They tore it down sometime around 2000-2002? (I moved to AZ in late 2000 then moved back and now live in Fremont, CA so they must have got rid of it within that timeline.) Anyways, if anyone can send some info my way regarding this long lost siren, or any others that existed in or near Hayward...that'd be great.
Based on the description you have given me here I have possibly come to the conclusion that the siren you are looking for is a Fedelcode Model 20. But I am not too sure if that is the correct siren due to the ones I found online. Plus the top of most of them on google images has a cone on top but it did have the 4 rings. But either way I am glad to help you out mate!
You're describing a Scream-Master siren. There are a couple left in that East Bay area, I've been to some to take pictures of them. There's one more left in Hayward though, on top of the City Hall building.
@@thespiritstingray9359 At one point the city of Los Angeles was considering re activating their whole system again because of the bomb threat of North Korea. But the sirens still remained deactivated since 1985. And since there is peace with North Korea and the U.S.A, they will probably not be activated anytime at all.
@@Blixt1000 seems about right. Given the condition of the sirens though, they would need to either completely replace them, or have a lot of maintenance done on them so they all run consistently without issues. Good to know
Lil_Alpha 2021 they would probably have to spend about a month getting them wired up again but there is no doubt that with a little oil here and there they would work just fine.
Where I grew we had a siren that was used as a call for the volunteer fire deptment. www.twincities.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/thinkstockphotos-147014239-e1523551513800.jpg?w=1024&h=576
