Silencing the sirens

The city of Ruston has permanently silenced its outdoor warning sirens and wants residents to go CodeRED instead.

CodeRED is a free community notification system that city officials say is a more effective and efficient way of informing the public about pending weather or other emergencies. CodeRED’s picked up about 300 new participants in the 6 days since the city announced it was removing the sirens.

The decision to get rid of the outdoor warning system came partially because of the cost of getting it fixed, and partially because of the confusion that’s surrounded the system since it was installed approximately 11 years ago, city officials said.

Despite repeated attempts to educate residents about the sirens, nothing seemed to work.

“No matter how many times we did public service announcements, there was still confusion about what to do when the sirens went off,” Ruston Fire Chief Chris Womack said.

The 13 sirens strategically placed throughout the city were purchased during former Mayor Dan Hollingsworth’s administration at a cost of $250,000. At the time, the city had no way to issue weather warnings or push out other information.

The system was designed for use in case of catastrophic events including terrorism and hazardous chemical emergencies, its primary function has always been as a severe weather alert system.

The sirens meant take shelter and seek more information — for example, go inside if residents were outdoors and check weather information from television, radio, or cellphone weather apps.

The sirens were activated from the Ruston Police Department dispatch and only when the National Weather Service issued specific warnings for events like thunderstorms with high straight-lines winds or tornados.

Yet from the start radio-technology outdoor system had issues. During spring and summer, foliage often muffled the sound.

The system had a voice component meant to be used if a warning was targeted for a certain part of the city, but the words garbled as they echoed off structures in the path of the pole-mounted speakers. And there were technology questions.

“Even when we did this, the conversation came up ‘is this outdated technology,’” Womack said.

Upgrading the technology just to get the siren system operative would cost approximately $50,000. The city can run CodeRED for seven years for roughly the same amount, Haley Perot, assistant to Mayor Ronny Walker, said.

The city pays about $7,000 annually for the Florida-based OnSolve LLC to provide the CodeRED technology.

“This is the cleanest current form to try to get information out,” Womack said.

It was the EF3 tornado that hit Ruston on April 25, 2019, that prompted the city to investigate options like CodeRED.

The initial siren warning period wasn’t until 2:15 a.m. The storm hit at 1:47 a.m.

“There needed to be something more immediate,” Public Works Director John Freeman said.

Ruston launched CodeRED in April 2021, saying it would be the backbone of the city’s emergency planning and communications outreach to both residents and city staff. About 1,000 residents have opted in.

The high- speed mass alert service has three notification components: local emergencies, including weather, missing children notices, boil advisories, fires, and utility outages; National Weather Service alerts; and general alerts that are mostly information items such as holiday or closure notices.

“We want to let you know what’s happening as quick as we can,” Perot said.

Residents can sign up for the free service through the city’s website, ruston.org. Notifications can come via phone calls, texts, or emails. Residents outside of Ruston can register by using 401 N. Trenton St. (city hall) as the address instead of their own.