My favorite sirens are the Sentry 16V1T-B, Whelen WPS-series, Federal Signal Modulator, and ACA P-50. And also, just a topic idea, could you make a video about weather radios in particular?
Built-in redundancy is a good doctrine in civil defence. If the tornado causes an unplanned decommissioning of your cellular network for an area, a siren is realistically your best method of gaining attention. Also, if you are going to receive a warning on a mobile phone, it will not be that useful if it's charging in your kitchen whilst you're mowing the lawn...
I can't see a good reason to get rid of them. Sure we can get cellular warnings now, but I don't know if people will really take them as serious as the sirens. There's something about the fear that the sirens put in you that just isn't present with mobile alerts
@@partlycloudy7707 That's actually a very sound point. Unless mobile phone makers are going to modify the OS used to cause a particular penetrating sound, it'll not be that effective. Pings just don't cut it for causing the necessary alert state of mind. But you hear an eerie howling and lowing sound and your state of mind realises that you'd better act.
And for elderly people who don’t want technology. My Grandma has a weather radio but if she didn’t the only thing that would save her would be the sirens.
Sirens are definitely still a necessity. Being from Kansas, I couldn’t tell you how many times sirens have woken me up in the middle of the night. I remember once when I was little my sister and I were home alone and playing outside when the sirens went off. It’s also pretty ignorant to assume that everyone has a phone in the first place. Keep the sirens!
@ChaosLord5129 Which city? I'm from MO! And I cannot believe anyone would want them gone! What if someone forgets their phone, it dies, or they don't have one because their old one broke and they haven't gotten their replacement yet? Or can't afford a phone in general? And like OP said, what about little kids playing outside? I mean, you'd hope parents would be aware and able to call them in, but when I was a kid, I would roller blade and ride my bike all around a mile radius and be hanging out at random friend's houses, backyards, and weird abandoned railroad buildings ha. We heard sirens go off a lot while playing around outside so I'd shudder to think what could've happened if we weren't aware of a quick forming tornado!
Please, DO NOT RELY ON SIRENS! A NOAA Weather Radio is a personal indoor “smart siren” that honestly every home, school and business should have. You should have multiple, redundant ways of getting alerts. Don’t get me wrong, I like them a lot, but they can fail easily and aren’t always on time since they’re often manually activated.
Redundancy is so important. We lived in Abilene, TX and they got rid of their sirens and went to a texting system. Several years ago (2019) they were hit by an EF2 tornado that started on the local air base and then moved into the city. Because it started on the air base and was noticed by the tower control, an Airman on duty decided to switch the base sirens on before the official NOAA warning was even issued. She's credited for saving lives (no one was injured) not only on base, but in the city because it woke up the neighborhoods in the surrounding area as well. Sirens can be annoying, until they work and save your life.
Not from Abilene, but spent some time in Texas. I had the shittiest piece of shit for a phone at the time (2016ish) that couldn't be relied on to respond to incoming calls in real-time, let alone properly convey natural disaster warnings. I relied entirely on old-school sirens in the distance to keep myself safe. I feel like ambient sirens are a responsible second layer/fail-safe for keeping people safe in a natural disaster. Personal devices as they are now are too flakey with dumb shit like volume settings, signal, or just the responsiveness of the device hardware itself to replace neighborhood sirens.
The scariest feeling in one's life is growing up at the same house for 17 years, hearing the siren next to your house do the "alert" tone once a month, every month, every year... Then all of a sudden on a non-test day, at non-test time, on a high risk weather day, you hear the "attack" tone from that siren for the first time in your life. I never even knew it made that tone, and I nearly peed my pants. ACA Banshee.
I grew up in tornado alley and had a traumatic experience as a kid then when I was about 8 years old moved away and didn’t live anywhere where tornadoes were really a threat for 12 years then I moved back to my childhood home and for probably a year I would wake up on the first Wednesday of every month at 11am with a panic attack and damn does exposure therapy work but when those sirens go off at night during stormy weather I still freak out
@@Legoman12346 I don’t really get why so many places use the actual siren sound for testing. I lived in Tennessee for a while and the place I lived had the tornado sirens play the sound of a grandfather clock. It was incredibly nice since it didn’t scare you for a moment and it’s a much softer sound. The only reason I understand why people would do something like that is when it’s an older style of siren that can’t be programmed to play other sounds.
I've always been glad the sirens still exist, especially for people who don't own a cellphone or have bad service. It's anyways good to have them, no matter how outdated they may seem.
Yep, while the sirens near my house are definitely not as loud as they should be and I really cannot hear them inside of my house if there is heavy winds. They are definitely a necessity, when power goes out the data towers are struggling they are the last and first tool of use for warning people
I would of get woke up by a phone alarm that is just glorified sms like my GF can send me 20 sms in the morning and I will not hear them, but calls wakes up
As someone who grew up in tornado alley, the sirens going off was always the scariest part of the storm. Night of the Twisters is the one tornado flick that really captures the terror when you're home alone and those sirens start wailing. Twister is great, but the Night of the Twisters sequence in the house is one of my favorite scenes in any storm movie.
@@bentrod3405 No I haven’t and I can only imagine. I’ve been in bad thunderstorms but luckily one never dropped a tornado near us. But we did get the sirens quite often
@@jb8331 I watched the biggest tornado in the world from the top step of our storm cellar. It was 2 miles wide and looked more like the sky had descended than a tornado. It was sucking in enough air that you could do the smooth criminal lean just using the wind.
@@bentrod3405 seen your other comment after clicking handle I couldn't even imagine one worse than Moore Oklahoma until reading more last year about el reno. That one should been rated a F6.
@@kennethwallace4338 yeah, only reason it wasnt more reported was because of how rural of an area it hit. My dad volunteered at the local fire department at the time so I went around with him and the other firefighters helping with cleanup. We just had some debris land in our yard and a little room damage. Others were not nearly as lucky.
As someone who is a "Siren Enthusiast" and has been watching your videos since day one, I must say you did a pretty good job at nailing siren basics! It was really cool to see someone actually dive into the various models and signals produced by these things. Very solid video! Your production quality has definitely improved
People are always wondering why sirens invoke so much fear, the answer is that’s the entire point of the sound, they made the sound specifically to scare people and get them to shelter.
on top of that, the fact that we are told to associate the sound of the siren with potentially devastating events makes sure that everyone pays attention, as lives could be in danger.
Growing up in the Midwest, I am very familiar with tornado sirens. My city tests them on the first Wednesday of every month. I liked the Thunderbolt, fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Unfortunately, the city replaced them a few years ago with something wimpy. My mom was in Madison, Wisconsin, to visit her sister in college in the 1960s. Madison also tested their sirens regularly. A German man who had lived through the war was there. He was freaking out over the sirens, either reliving bad memories or believing that the bombers were on the way.
Mine tests them *every* wednesday. In my part of the city we have have the regular-old whelen sirens and I wish I lived in the northern part of my city where all the thunderbolts are.
Louisiana, here. First Thursday of month for us. And there's friggin 3 of them in close proximity to my house, so it just sounds worse when they're all slightly off sync.
YES WE SHOULD KEEP THEM! I used to work in a facility where I was required to leave my phone out in my car or locked in a locker during the day, and our internet usage was whack. The ONLY WAY I knew we were in an active tornado's path was because our town still has a fully functional siren. There are times when you DON'T have a radio, DON'T have a phone, DON'T have a TV or Internet and DON'T have ANY IDEA there is a danger coming right at you except for the rusty former air raid siren screaming into the stormy skies. It's also ridiculously easy for phones, Internet, and TV to be completely fucked up in a crisis, and kind of foolish to expect that they are always a reliable fall back.
Tornado sirens are not a perfect solution. But that's kinda the point in a way. There are situations where, as you point out, certain technologies are not useful, even if they make perfect sense in other scenarios. This applies to tornado sirens in the same way it applies to cell phones or the internet. When you're talking about an imminent threat to your life that requires you to take immediate action, the more redundancy the better.
If you live or work in a tornado prone area, you should have a functioning weather radio that can be programmed to sound an alarm if a storm is headed your way
@@newton21989 You can’t have them with you everywhere. Weather radios are not as sleek and portable as cell phones. I can see them being super useful if driving through super rural areas in Tornado Alley, though.
I completely agree with you about keeping them. It seems to me to be utter folly to even contemplate getting rid of them. Look into the Plainview, Kansas tornado of 1990. The town went into a very powerful, violent tornado and NO ONE was warned. Sirens failed or not activated. No NWS warn until after the storm passed. Unforgivable! Many avoidable deaths and injuries that day. The sirens need to remain AND be well maintained. Many should probably be added where the coverage is limited.
The howl of a siren has always been haunting to me. I worked at a summer camp for a couple years, and they had one to signal forest fires that are close. You would hear the reflection of the siren that bounces on the pond.
The sirens were extremely useful for me 6 days ago. I was putting away groceries and I heard the sirens, about 10 minutes later we took a direct hit from an F3 tornado. The sirens bought me the time to get everyone into the shelter and ensure safety.
for me, the creepiest siren sound that i have heard was during the Andover, KS tornado in the '90s. The tornado cut the power, and the just the way the siren sounded immediately after losing it's power still haunts me to this day.
any audio/video available? sounds interesting ^^ broken sirens are always more haunting because "the one thing supposed to warn you from danger no longer works, so you have no idea what is going on"
I grew up in a town which would sound a siren at high noon. If you heard the siren at any other time, you knew something was bad was happening usually with a chemical plant release or tornado.
I used to live near an Air Force Base that did that until 2001. I don’t know if it was just coincidence that they stopped doing it after 9/11 or intentional.
Yeah, your mind makes that connection in your head. I remember reading a story of someone who had this weird apple-cinnamon flavoured medicine that made them throw up, and even since they got over that illness they still get sick smelling cinnamon. What’s even weirder is the tone used in US and UK’s EAS alerts being the tone that your brain links to the emotion fear. Weird right?
In my Senior year of High School, I was helping set up for homecoming and a HUGE storm hit. A tornado touched down near my school. But before the storm hit heavily, I got locked outside. The wind picked up and then it started POURING. Suddenly there was an electrical voice saying “Seek shelter immediately, this is not a test” then it started listing all the places I could hide. So I stared calling everyone who was inside and trying to get it ( A “Let me in. LET ME IN” sort of moment). Finally I got in and took shelter with everyone. It was the worst storm I’d experienced.
In the part of the US where i currently live there are no tornado sirens and basements are only possible in a very small part of the state. If you are lucky enought to have a safe room with no windows it is probably too late when you find out.
A couple of years ago we had an EF-3 go through our town just after midnight. The sirens were all blaring before and during the event. I was already up following the storms because I don't wanna get caught unprepared. Even if it helps just a handful of people, I say it's worth keeping them around.
I grew up in the D-FW area, and we use the "Attack" sirens for our tornado warnings for the most part. I think part of what makes sirens more terrifying in practice is that they often come in the middle of a heavy thunderstorm with heavy winds, so you're already on edge. The overlapping of sirens also adds a lot to the horror factor. I was at the University of Houston a while back for a visiting football game, and I hated the fact that they used the exact siren we used in D-FW as their "celebration"(?) tone. Not only that, but they put it right next to the visiting band, which made me very thankful that I was already wearing earplugs.
I’m also from DFW, and the most spooked I’ve ever been by the weather was when my house in northeast Midlothian was under a tornado warning. We didn’t have any sirens super close to us, but we were close enough to Cedar Hill and Ovilla to hear both of their sirens, somewhat off-sync with each other. Deeply unsettling sound, 0/10.
i used to live in the Tyler-Longview Metroplex idk what kind of siren they use nowadays but it’s probably scary irl. haven’t actually heard them in person but i googled “Tyler Tornado Siren” you can too if you wanna hear it
I also grew up in the area, and my grandparents house had one on the very edge of their property. They would periodically test it and sometimes we'd be outside in the backyard and we wouldn't see the county worker van so it would scare the living daylights out of us.
As a guy who has a crippling fear of tornadoes in general, sirens have always terrified me, along with the EAS warning that pops up on the TV. My heart just drops, and I immediately start freaking out. Oddly enough, I did have a weird obsession with them when I was around 11-13 years old. Figured I was alone in that.
I had a bad phobia of tornados, thunderstorms, and EAS alerts growing up. But my fear came with curiosity, so I started learning about severe weather and weather in general. Oftentimes it’s the things that scare us the most that also fascinate us the most. In fact, I’m here after having a horrible tornado nightmare X’D
I absolutely hate the sound of the EAS and air raid/tornado sirens, and they make me panic when I hear them too, yet here I am watching this video in the middle of the night
@@benthenerd177 Oh, yeah, same here. Watched it after midnight, then had to watch different videos for a while to calm myself down. Why do I do this to myself? LOL.
Tornado sirens aren’t that scary to me I like the noise kinda. Noises that are comparable to a triangle that pierce my ears like EAS alarms and Fire Alarms immediately make me jolt and cover my ears.
@@vernallapin I feel exactly the same! Tornados have scared the daylights out of me since I was little, as did the EAS alerts. But I find myself completely intrigued by them. Same with nuclear weapons, although that fear didn't crop up until well into adulthood 😟
Having lived through a couple tornado's direct hits. The creepiest tornado siren tone, is the one of a nearby siren being suddenly silenced. No wind down. No fade. Just instant sudden silence slowly being replaced with a deep ground shaking grumble as the tornado comes your way. The scariest is hearing the siren, it being silenced. Then everything being completely quiet and calm, and then suddenly your ears pop while doors start flying open windows shattering and having the sudden shock of the smell of earth and frigid cold. I'll never forget how the weather felt on those days. It makes me uneasy because every time I've been hit or nearby, it's felt the exact same. Getting rid of sirens is short sighted and moronic. The amount of times I've been outside, away from my phone and they've gotten me to go indoors is a lot. I appreciate the service they do.
I'm one of them siren enthusiasts and I must say, this video is a work of art! Really appreciate just how in depth you went and how much effort was put in to this.
@SwegleStudios me personally I believe that sirens are more reliable than cell phones even though cell phones are reliable for folks who don't live in towns and cities that have sirens or for folks who lives too far to hear sirens bcuz some folks don't have cell phones but at the same time the problem for the folks who don't have cell phones and that lives too far to hear the sirens are sitting ducks unless they have weather radios but how about them folks who don't have neither of those rely on to escape from situations like tornadoes & hurricanes & floods and etc?
I've always said sirens have a musical value to them. It is cool to hear that sirens were originally made to create music. I like hearing the ambiance of multiple sirens, especially in attack mode. One siren winds up, while another winds down, then the sirens unify, only to separate again. Like watching metronomes sync up and desync.
So true. An 8/1/12 port siren would make a chord. Also there used to be a siren on top of Yamaha headquarters in Japan that was a bunch of different sirens with different ports it played music
Coming from a small town in Texas, tornado sirens are still very much needed. Not everyone has a phone that's capable of recieving weather alerts (and some people have turned them off because they're annoying). There's also circumstances of people at work who aren't allowed to have their phones on them at work (think schoolteachers or construction or some desk jobs)
my city once had discussions of removing their sirens, the 2015 Rowlett tornado changed their mind on their sirens. now the town os hostile to people complaining about them
@@TouqasBonquishes nope. get sirens for a city or suffer as a result. a californian city gut burned and people didnt evacuate fast enough because cell phone towers were burned down, and the city had no sirens
I was living in Memphis during the insane spring of 2011, and it seemed like every other day those Thunderbolts would be blaring. My first video I ever posted on YT was of the tornado sirens blaring during the Feb 5th, 2008 tornado that hit Hickory Ridge Mall. Nothing gets the adrenaline pumping like a good siren!
I want to add that in Southwest Michigan the "attack tone" is currently used for fires and other emergencies. The tornado tone is a steady, unwavering tone. When I hear the town siren go off during tornado season I stop what I am doing and hold my breath to see if the pitch goes down. If it does then I resume what I am doing; if not, then I turn to local media to find out what is going on and I also start looking at the sky to see if I can get any clues there. Fortunately that does not happen very often. But yes, I pay attention to the sirens.
A Fellow Michigander. Always nice to see. Only time I've heard sirens is on the first Friday of the month, there was one time where there was a concern of a tornado and sirens did go off however I was not actually home to give a listen.
Southeast Michigander here! I used to be so scared of the sirens on test days, but now it doesn’t even faze me. There’s actually been a couple recent winters here when the sirens were used to indicate snow emergencies.
As someone who grew up in a region of southern Michigan particularly filled with lakes, these sirens are vital. While Michigan isn't the biggest tornado hotspot in the country, there were at least a few times growing up when we had to speed home off the lake because we heard the siren. It's crazy how a peaceful day can turn into a severe weather outbreak in minutes, and you need all the time you can get to get to safety. Sure, cell phone warnings exist now, but you're not on your phone when your chilling in the middle of the lake... Also, where I grew up is full of Federal 2001-SRNBs. Maybe that's why I never found them to be creepy, since the 2001 is pretty tame.
Plus those emergency alerts don't ever seem to all come in at the same time to everyone. So if your in the unlucky group to get a delayed message you're SOL
Where I grew up, the sirens were essential, with or without phone warnings. The sirens confirmed that we needed to shelter as we moved because sometimes notifications got pushed too broadly in the sticks but it also let us know when we could leave the basement because you can't tell when the part of the storm that you needed to hide from is gone unless you have the TV on loud or you hear the sirens stop. Or you've been looking at radar for your whole life and know what to look for, which is a tall ask for some folks
Yeah but I live in the country and there is none out in the middle of nowhere so if there is one you have to look for yourself to find out if there is one
It's amazing what mundane things can capture people's hearts, there's new ones I hear of every day. There's the classic train spotters or rail fans, then there's bridge hunters, now siren hunters, etc. I really love how passionate people are about these things
This one time my family did a camping trip through the northern US and at a site in South Dakota, there was a town nearby which used a tornado siren as the curfew siren. Being 11 years old at the time, i did not want to deal with a tornado while camping.
@@Jonesnihil cities and small towns with curfew ordinances (for juveniles and children) sometimes implement systems like this. i used to live next to a city that uses them, and that was a big suburban city. they typically use them as you said, just to signal the beginning of curfew. its essentially useless though, no one listens. ironically they stopped doing it bc it was straining the power supply lmfao
The sirens are scary but that fear is needed so the needed actions are done. Before leaving for boot camp, my family lived in a township with a siren that goes off daily at noon. It was actually needed while I lived there and I referenced the one event on another vid. That was an insane day!
I spent my early childhood in the Midwest and am very familiar with the fear that comes with hearing storm sirens. So imagine my absolute terror when I moved to the mid-Atlantic (where tornadoes are very uncommon) and my town used the same kind of sirens to alert the volunteer fire department.
Same here. I was visiting relatives in Eastern PA when I heard a siren and started scanning the sky. I asked my relatives, and they said it was a fire siren. It must have been a tiny fire, since it never made the news. I would think they’d save them for huge fires that can spread from building to building. I can see California using them for that purpose when a wildfire is dangerously close to an area.
The dual tone Thunderbolt struck fear in my heart as a child. It was a couple miles away, but perched atop a hill, so I could see it standing guard over my corner of the town all the time. I can remember watching it rotating once through a pair of binoculars during a test. Definitely a creepy sound. Now days, I miss the old thunderbolts.
I live in Norman, OK. Our sirens went off three times last night (Feb 26, '23); we had a large Tornado come through the far east part of town. No reported deaths or serious injuries. Gotta say--something about that sound, even if on a YT video or at noon on Saturday when they test them, is eerie and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up 😬 UPDATE: You showed our county courthouse for the single-tone sound!
My dog gets terrified of them when they go off. We have to bring her harness and leash downstairs with us so she doesn’t try and run up the stairs to bark at it.
I live in Central PA which for those who don't know is kind of a mini tornado alley. We don't typically get the monster super cell twisters they get out in the center of the nation, thank the gods, but we do have frequent low level tornadoes through the late spring-mid summer part of the year and at higher rates than the national average. I've heard mine go off probably 4 times in the last 20 years, and it IS far creepier in person than this video hints. It's the sudden mood change. You're just living your little life, ignorant of the dangers of the world, and all of a sudden those dangers interject in a VERY real way, threatening your home, livelihood, and family, all set to the sinister song of those sirens. It's a...well...a rotten slice of life.
@Matthew Lawton Makes me wonder what WWII must have been like for Europeans (or for Ukrainians 🇺🇦✊️ in our current state of world geopolitical affairs), going about their lives as best they can when all of a sudden a siren rings out that signals bombs and missiles raining down from the sky. Can't imagine those conditions. I'd take a tornado any day over that.
As a siren enthusiast, you did amazing with explaining the concept of tornado sirens. They are very fascinating and it's good to know there's a wide community out there. It's also important for people to understand the aspects based around them as well.
@@BRISTOLFORCE2009 when my ex girlfriend(s) try to rekindle a relationship or get back in Touch I’d love this to go off: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LnkMSmLc6mM.html
I grew up as a military brat and with one of the bases we lived on there was a siren right behind our backyard. I remember one time there was a severe thunderstorm hitting the base and the house was being hit hard by the winds, everything was shaking, it sounded like a train and all of a sudden the siren starts going off. Even with how loud the storm was it felt like the siren was going off right next to me. Just a steady deafening wooooo. It was amazing and terrifying. Really one of those experiences that really puts this animalistic fear of God in you. This mix of curling up in a ball, sobbing and this feeling of if I don't escape this second, I will die. I will cease to exist and be no more. The siren would also play the National Anthem every day at ear rape volumes, so that was neat
0:20 fun fact - humans can actually be sensitive enough to pressure changes to be somewhat able to predict storms. Usually it's those with specific injuries or the like though.
As a siren enthusiast, this is literally perfect. Sirens are unique and vital to those prone to severe weather. Recording them is also a fun and unique experience, as there are so many different types and models to explore!
I lived in a state where we had a tornado almost every year, and one of them hit surprisingly close to home once. Now, whenever I hear that one unmuffled car at night, my brain goes straight to thinking it's a siren, and especially during a storm, my heart just sinks. Tornado sirens are truly one of the scariest sounds you will ever hear.
The creepiest part of the siren sound for me is how they all turn on at different times but close together. It's like they all gang up on your ears swiftly.
The ones that really creep me out is the talking/"Voice of God" sirens. Especially when you hear it at night and you can't quite understand what it's saying. This is probally why these haven't caught on in more areas.
@@BingBreep-mk6om I live I the city on the 7th floor of my building. There is one of those about half a block away from me straight across from my window. You just hear this not-quite-real voice after the siren stops wailing and it is creepy as heck. And we get a lot of bad storms in St. Louis. The Thunderbolts are still the creepiest (but quite effective) to me but you sure won't mistake that sound for anything else.
I had one in the corner of my Gradeschool, the Thunderbolt 1000. They blew the sirens on June 8th, 1966 in Topeka, KS and it's credited with keeping the death count of that Tornado so low. I watched it go through downtown from my neighbors house, they had binoculars. At this point I remember remembering it more then remembering it, if that makes sense. I was three after all. I remember being in the neighbors backyard and I remember them holding the binoculars up to me, all I saw was a big black wall with specks flying around it. If you've ever looked through binoculars adjusted wrong, you know you just get the black wall of the tubes look till you look down through it. Looking back later I realized that was the big wedge tornado and debri, roofs, cars, what have you being thrown around by that monster. Couldn't see it now if you wanted to all the trees between my old but then new, neighborhood have grown up. I can't ever see getting rid of them. Cell phones are nice and keeping an eye out on the weather, well that's important here in Kansas/Missouri border area. Just last week I was watching the tv and didn't think anything of the storm going through. My wife came out of her room and said "there's a tornado warning" I looked at her and said really? Then, about 1/4 mile away the local siren went off. I did what every native Kansas boy would do, I looked out the window. Hell, I didn't see any darkness at all and definitely no green. Where's it supposed to be I asked? I think it was detetected by radar but I never saw anything from it. Now, the one that went through just south of us by about a mile 3 or 4 years back. I saw the edge of the storm and was trying to take video of the lightning which was coming down almost like a curtain 300 yards across the street (it's a pasture) But just as soon as I'd get my video started on my phone my wife and daughter would txt another message and screw it up. Should have put it on airplane mode. Impressive, lightning strikes that never got closer then the ridge on the top of the hill. Would have been nice to document that. I could go on and on but I'll leave off with, I had to move from Topeka to Kansas City for my work. I sold the house, found a place to live and was coming up on the move date. Night before we had our 13th tornado warning of that year. I was packing the moving van and looked up to watch a funnel go overhead. "Gotta get outta this state" All I could think. Took em about 5 years to catch up to my new location.
I hope everything is going alright that’s sounds scary I am in the USAs tornado alley and I haven’t seen or heard any tornado activity in a while because this winter is soooooo long
Stay safe folks I’ve just binged watched all the major tornado events dating back to the 1800’s the ones that scared me most was the Joplin, El Reno for its size and how it behaved so unpredictable and the Candlestick park tornado. I’m from the UK didn’t even realise we have our own tornado valley, crazy. Anyways stay safe!
As a kid growing up near Air Force bases I remember them sounding the sirens at noon. We have a tornado siren three lots down, it gets annoying during tests but I am glad it’s there. I once lived in Seward Alaska and they had those speaker sirens for tsunami warnings and the first time I heard a test it freaked me out, we could hear voices and then a siren but had no clue what was going on
Seward, Alaska ? A very funny thing is that at their fire department there are 3 sirens from 3 different generations (50's, 80's and 2000's) right next to each other, it's kind of a meme in siren enthusiast groups ^^
I remember when I was in 5th grade circa 1993, there was a MASSIVE thunderstorm. Immediately after a massive thunderclap, the civil defense siren (an old square rotating horn) on campus started blaring, one continuous tone. Apparently lightning had struck it and caused it to short circuit. This was in an area with no tornadoes. It took them several hours to shut it off, as they had to wait for the storm to subside.
as a siren enthusiast I’m happy that this was video was made because it sheds light on our community because the siren community isn’t THAT big, it’s big but you know.
@@SwegleStudios i agree, but your videos searching tornado paths, telling stories/mysteries, history of tornadoes, its so interesting man you're on the way in the weather community 👍🏻
I’m just about 27 now and was obsessed with sirens in my teens. Everyone thought I was a weirdo for it. I remember watching every single video you use in here and could even tell what video you took audio from that weren’t shown in this video. And i never would have thought people are making informative videos like this. Thank you 😊
Lol I feel you man, I used to be obsessed with em when I was 11-12 right after I started becoming crazy over tornadoes, I never really told anyone about it tho.
I grew up in the shadow of Three Mile Island, so I grew up hearing the siren wails echo off the Appalachian mountains. My favorite thing about sirens is how they showcase massive natural reverb and echoes as the sounds bounce around the environment/atmosphere.
Sirens are so much scarier when you really hear them. If you have never been in a place with a lot of tornadoes its hard to describe what its like to hear the sirens still gives me chills.
If they are scary, then they're doing their job :P Those who are used to them react to them more clinically and in a more orderly, quicker fashion anyways XD
Here in Oklahoma, all my life the sirens test at noon on Saturdays. Even with them being THAT frequent, I always peer at a clock to make sure it was the test. Been in close proximity with 2 of the worst tornados ever seen. You gain an appreciation for anything that can prevent disaster, once you've seen a neighborhood of brick homes get slabbed and asphalt peeled off the roadways.
Growing up in the Midwest made me underestimate tornados. I remember driving and buying food in the middle of a storm when some sirens went off. Probably the 3rd or 4th time that week, shit gets old after a while and loses any scariness
I love the ‘Chicago’ siren. It’s downright eerie but it gets your attention right enough. Talking of weird things people like, I love electricity pylons and power stations. 😉👍
@@star-s8f3s it IS siren head's siren, im assuming the creator used it for siren head, and this is why the chicago one sounds a little creepy to me, because of a few siren head videos a little too late
I’m from Wichita. During tornado seasons they sound the sirens every Monday at noon. There’s one at an intersection near me. Most recently the tornado that hit Augusta triggered sirens throughout Wichita. People here aren’t afraid of tornadoes. Hearing the sirens go off is an invitation to go tornado spotting. One thing to note is that when you’re in the house during strong wind and rain, you can’t always hear the sirens. They’re for warning people outside and they’re surprisingly hard to hear in really bad weather.
In many towns across Pennsylvania, tornado/attack sirens are sounded whenever there is a fire call to alert the volunteers to check their pagers or phones. Different tones are used for different events as well. We had a tornado last March and it was a consistent tone, while fire calls are what you consider to be an attack tone. I have been to many places in PA and it seems most towns use this method to alert the town of an emergency. Everything that triggers a fire department to respond is something a siren is sounded for. In my particular town, there are three different sirens that create a very creepy atmosphere whenever there is an emergency. Keep up the good work and I look forward to more!
My town used to do that but had to stop sounding sirens for fire calls because some idiots (scanner chasers) would follow the fire departments to see the fire or wreck scene
Used to live in a small town in PA and our town did three long alert tones if I recall correctly for volunteers to check in. They stopped doing that about ten years ago for some reason. Too many complaints, I guess, along with better cellphone coverage. That town was in a weird place, and so some of the volunteers lived up to five or ten minutes away (at regular road speed) in the heavily forested area where I was too, and cellphone coverage did not exist there for many, many years. Still barely has dependable coverage so I don't know why they just didn't, you know, move the siren.
I grew up in missouri where twisters are super common, basically one every other week during the spring and fall. The sirens are chilling, but seeing trees get ripped from their roots in your back yard is much more so.
During my career with a fire department in Texas we had to observe our tornado sirens on test day and report their function back to dispatch. And, just like you said...many times siren enthusiasts would show up and watch the tests with us. One guy even recorded them. In those days they were big ol yellow Federals. By the time I retired they were all electronic. I always enjoyed watching and hearing them (as long as it was just a test) Nice video!
I’ve lived in a place that has fairly prominent tornado watches, but hardly ever gets any warnings. If we do, the storm usually passes south of us and ends up hitting a completely different town. Yet, despite this, every time we test our sirens it still gives me chills! They sound so cool and terrifying at the same time.
Awesome video! Great job! I love your Duran Duran shirt (I love Duran Duran)! I love sirens! I used to be scared of them when I was little, but now I love them! I also have some sensory stuff (I am autistic), and certain sounds got to me. When I was younger, it was sirens. There are other sounds that get to me, now. There are some sounds that still get to me, even now. But the tornado siren is not one of them, now.
Sirens do indeed scare me, they just seem so ominous, especially if everything else is quiet. But there’s no denying whatsoever how important they are from a safety standpoint. Not everyone has access to a phone or is able to check it right when they need to, like if they’re driving, sleeping, or if their phone happened to die.
I grew up across the street from a fire station with a dual tone ACA Hurricane 130. I still remember being outside one beautiful summer day before I realized Tuesdays at 10am were siren testing days. That thing went off and it was loud. I booked it back into the house with my mom chasing me to tell me we were safe.
I have zero shame admitting I'm terrified when the sirens go off. I had one particularly horrifying experience, and now every time I hear them my stomach sinks. The same thing applies to emergency sirens for me. Firetrucks and ambulances in particular have gone by the house a couple times and it almost makes me cry in fear of what could be happening.
One time the entire city of Dallas sirens were hacked and. It was like 1 in the morning and my entire family was asleep I was the only person awake. All of a sudden every single siren went off and it was not raining at all and I went outside and my neighbors were packing their car with stuff and telling their children to hurry I went back inside debating if I should wake my family up because mind you I was thinking there was a ballistic nuclear missile was being sent to the city so I thought I was going to die along with everyone else and I made up my mind to just let them die in their sleep instead So I went upstairs and sat against the wall shaking and praying that it would be a quick death. Later to find out it was just a hacker. And I was thankful but it was the most terrifying experience of my life.
I just love the 2001 model. It reminds my of my childhood. Such a classic sound. My little midwest town used to set it off every day at noon for years. That's how you knew to go home for lunch. Because we were just outside _somewhere_ within a few miles. Now we only hear the monthly tests and real storm warnings.
I grew up in areas with no Tornados. This past week we were traveling through Dallas/Ft Worth during the Tornado watch and for the first time I heard the sirens go off. The Ft Worth sirens went off as we were leaving and the sirens in Wilmur went off after we had gotten to our stop. As someone who has never heard them in person before, that was terrifying 😂
To add on: There's also the pulse signal type, which is probably the rarest in use. It's the same solenoid mechanism as high-low, but instead of alternating the two tones it'll toggle the both of them in lockstep (i.e. "on-off-on-off" instead of "high-low-high-low").
Good god, this video gave me goosebumps, I remember the sirens going off during severe thunderstorms in my small town in Texas from the sheer speed of the wind, they weren’t on but the wind was sounding them. Seeing the old mechanical ones that we used here just gave me chills. Edit: we had the allertor model from ACA
5:30 - Imagine waking up on a stormy morning in 1880, walking outside and hearing and witnessing what you believe to be some dudes firing a cannon at a tornado. Strange times, man. Strange times.
I was surprised you didn't mention the Chrysler-Bell siren which is no longer in use. It's the Holy Grail of siren enthusiasts! The largest, loudest, most powerful ever built.☮️
They were civil defense sirens when I was a kid, and tornado sirens later on. Our local volunteer fire department uses an old (electro-mechanical) one at a nearby elementary school built in the 1960s. The duck/cover drills we did during the Cold War still stick with me; also, do *not* stand next to an ACA screamer when it goes off. Your ears will ring for at least 12 hours 😆.
Interesting as a Brit, because, like you mentioned, I instantly associate the standard sound of a siren with ww2. Having never lived through that period, it feels kind of nostalgic, mostly due to films, tv and dramas set in the time. You feel like a woman in a green uniform with impeccable hair and lip-stick is about to appear and tell you that "Blighty's going to give them a jolly what-for!" And you go "yEEEEAH!" and forget all the real life terror and trauma of war 😅😬
she'd more likely have said, "Keep calm, no need to panic. Carry on regardless".....to which you'd reply, "Oh dear, Jerrys back. We'll get down below and have a spot of tea. Cheerio"
@@lilblackduc7312 Using WW2 as the litmus test for "we held it together (supposedly) back then so we're not allowed to complain otherwise we're a bunch of weedy-wusses" for the rest of time until the heat-death of the universe 😭
When I was a kid, there was a Civil Defense siren in our neighborhood. It wasn’t near our house but it was right behind the school where my mother taught. They’d test it every Friday at noon. It was eerie hearing it off in the distance, but it was downright terrifying to hear it if you were right next to it. I remember hearing the siren once when it wasn’t noon on a Friday, which meant it was a tornado warning. Well, unless it meant we were about to be hit by a nuke…
In Gillette, Wyoming a few years ago they started doubling down for the year on tornado siren tests (Not just Tuesdays, but Thursdays as well) because a tornado had crossed into a part of the city without the sirens going off. There weren’t any more tornados that actually come into town that year luckily. Edit: I’ll add that in Gillette this happened at night, and some people didn’t get the notification at all. Not many didn’t, but some. I got zero notification any tornado was near the area, and though it wasn’t near my house it still was scary that I had no clue that it happened until the next school day.
The hi lo signal is used in Philippines for fires, because it sounds like a fire truck, and sometimes when a powerful hurricane is close to Philippines, they use the Alternate Wail signal, which scares the shit outta me especially when its 12am.
I grew up in a town with a nuclear power plant and several whelen sirens. They always fascinated me. I’d see them dormant every day on the way to school and every so often they’d test them. They certainly are an important and interesting piece of infrastructure. Also, bro I love the Weatherscan music in the outtro.
My phone was on silent once. I was still woken up to a loud sound, and I thought, “it’s perfectly sunny out… _did someone get kidnapped again?”_ *checks phone* “This is a test of the national weather alerts service.” I was like, “oh… well, shoot. I was woken up for nothing.” Guess it’s good to know it woke me up, lol. But even so, don’t ditch sirens! Little kids don’t have phones!
I believe that tornado sirens are a necessity in most places, because where I live (Chicago suburbs), we have lots of tornado warnings/watches. even though every time there is a tornado warning, the sirens go off, my phone never goes off, even though it is not on silence or do not disturb. this is why we should keep tornado sirens, because the sirens are my main source of information of a tornado.
I went to Eureka, Nevada about a week ago on a camping trip late at night. There were no people outside and no signs of life so it was incredibly quiet, so already eerie. What really freaked me out though was that a tornado siren went off for about 5 seconds before being abruptly cut off. The sky was completely clear but it did keep me up for a while that night.
Most eerie/disturbing siren for me was being woken up at 3am by the tornado siren earlier this year. It was very scary for my half awake self. Other than that I'm fairly used to the sound of a tornado siren since in my area they run weekly tests every Friday at 11am during tornado season. I live almost in viewing distance of the siren so its very loud here but its certainly had to miss. Generally it just becomes a way of telling the time on Fridays. Like ope there's the siren I guess its 11 now.
My Dad lives in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it town in Indiana where the siren is tested at noon every Saturday. He made a joke about it every Saturday. As soon as it would go off he'd call out "Anyone know what time it is?"
A lot of volunteer fire depts in the eastern US have used them (or a predecessor siren) for decades to alert their members of calls. The volunteer FD in my hometown had one. But they were struck by a tornado in the mid-1950s which resulted in the town installing a second and distinctly different sounding one as a “just in case” thing. When the 2011 Derecho hit, my mom said she knew the storm was much more serious than the news was saying when that siren went off. She was used to hearing the volunteer FD’s fire whistle, which was going off for calls at the time, when the “just in case” siren drowned it out.
Great video! I grew up in Davenport, Iowa, which is part of what is called the "quad cities", two on the Iowa side of the Mississippi river and two on the Illinois side. Somewhere in the area was a civil defense / tornado siren that was tested on a regular basis. So if you heard that siren any other time, that meant you'd better head to your basement! I remember doing "disaster drills" at grade school, where we got on the floor (or sometimes went to the basement) and did the "duck and cover" position as you showed in the video. I am of the opinion it is a good idea to keep these sirens around. Not everyone is smart-phone-savvy. I know plenty of older people that only have flip phones and rely on traditional means of learning what the weather has in store. Other people live in areas where there isn't a strong cellular signal. In a true disaster situation, there might not be electricity at your location to charge your phone. Mother Nature may knock out the cell tower, and then nobody can use the phone... just ask anyone who has been through a hurricane. Keep the air raid sirens alive!!
I've always been in awe of sirens. Something that doesn't happen often enough in my area. In my town, we recently had a tornado blow through my area. We didn't know it was a tornado, as there was no warning other than a severe thunderstorm warning that popped up only moments before the storm hit us. I was at the local library at the time, and the storm was just... There. I was playing Tears Of The Kingdom and all of a sudden, the sky is dark and almost everyone is gone. My family was at the house still, I wanted to take a break from the noise and decided to head to the library so I had already been away from them for about an hour. When I looked up, the wind was raging and I felt fear. I think I knew it was a tornado even though there wasn't any sort of debris cloud to follow, I have a weather sense for these things and it was going off. I wanted to follow the storm but couldn't leave the building just yet. I called my aunt and we talked about the storm. I told her about how it came out of nowhere and the wind and rain was really bad where I was and how we even got some hail, and that it was moving extremely fast so they'd be getting the intense winds and such pretty quickly. I could hear the thunder claps on her end about 2 seconds after it went on mine. The rain died down a bit after about 20 minutes of anxious waiting, and I decide to book it to my jeep and get in the passenger side so rain doesn't seem in through the hole-ridden sealant on the driver side. I head towards home and decide to drive by the junior high, where my little sister was having color guard practice when the storm came through. She drove herself, since she'd just gotten her license. The high school is doing construction, so any outdoor stuff is held at other campuses. I attend college in another city nearby and our backyard neighbor's son had baseball practice at my campus because of this. Anyway, the neighborhood leading into the junior high had a fallen tree, and I drove around towards the next city to see the debris, but I got a feeling that I shouldn't do that and decided to head home instead. When I got home, our neighborhood had uprooted trees instead. We lost power for 5 hours, and I contacted my college professor for my continuing education program and she also lost power, as she lives in a city nearby as well. We later found out that it was confirmed to be a tornado, and my sister told me that the tornado started up at the junior high and actually went through our neighborhood as well. No word on the rating yet, but the damage has me thinking maybe EF2 at most. No houses were torn apart, and most damage extends to uprooted trees, misplaced garage sale signs, and stripped bark. That was on June 8th.
We live in an area where cell service is spotty, so sirens are definitely needed. We have the Whelen WPS in service with a man’s voice added in, that gives it a bit of a creepy 1950’s nuclear era feel. Thanks for the video.
Where I grew up, we had a siren, but it was not for tornados. It was sounded when the volunteer fire department was called. Although the firefighters had pagers, it was still useful for everyone in the area. If you were driving and heard that, you would know to watch out for the firefighters responding to the station (in that state, volunteer firefighters could put red lights and sirens in their personal vehicles and activate them when responding to calls).
It's amazing how hearing such sounds can cause such a visceral reaction. When I hear the tornado sirens around here, I can't help but feel a little excitement along with the foreboding. Of course I hope everyone/ everything will be okay but I'm glad to hear that others get a thrill out of it, too . The amber or silver alerts on the other hand cause the absolute pit of my stomach to drop when I hear them over my phone. It's such a terrible feeling.
