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Council approves siren repairs and National Weather Service tie-in using Safety LOIT funds
Summary
Jennings County officials approved repairs to county outdoor warning sirens and a technical connection to the National Weather Service, with the council appropriating funding from Safety LOIT and discussing maintenance and fail-safe procedures.
Jennings County moved to repair and upgrade its outdoor warning sirens and to connect the siren network to the National Weather Service, with funds to come from the county’s Safety Local Income Tax (Safety LOIT) account.
Jerry Shepherd, introduced by the chair, outlined two estimates: $20,117.38 to repair batteries and restore sirens to specification and $5,307.70 to enable automatic activation by the National Weather Service. “We want to connect our sirens to the National Weather Service...kind of taking the human factor out of it,” Jerry said, noting dispatch would still be able to manually activate systems and that weekly testing already takes place.
Council members asked about safeguards in case of technical glitches. Jerry said dispatch would receive the same tornado-warning notification and, as a backup, manual activation would remain available. An optional annual maintenance plan at roughly $13,000 was discussed but not adopted at this meeting.
Speaker 6 moved to appropriate the combined request from Safety LOIT; Speaker 1 read the motion and the council carried the appropriation by voice vote. The council instructed staff to document the appropriation and confirmed ongoing testing procedures remain in place.
