Sirens to be bought

— Three storm alert sirens will soon go up in the town of Highfill, thanks to GIS Community Enhancement Grant money received by the town.

The town of Highfill received a $3,500 check fromArkansas Representative Mary Slinkard and Arkansas Senator Kim Hendren in April. The money is from the state’s General Improvement Funded Community Enhancement Grant Program. The town recently received a second check through the efforts ofHendren and Slinkard in the amount of $43,000 from the same program, making a total of $78,000 available for the purchase of three sirens.

The town had requested $90,000 in the second round of grants, according to Highfill Fire Marshal Rob Holland, so that it could put sirens in all the populated areas of the town.

But grateful for the amount received, Holland said the town would begin by installing three sirens and later, as more grant funding becomes available, add more sirens to provide a second avenue of warning for Highfill residents, in addition to the county’snew telephone alert system which issues warnings and weather bulletins to residents via telephone, text and e-mail messages.

“We want to try to cover the biggest part of the populated area,” Holland said, suggesting one siren may be placed near the Highfill Fire Station, another along Arkansas Highway 12 near Mason Valley, and a third near the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport along or close to Arkansas Highway 264.

The sirens have a range of 7,000 feet (or more than 1.3 miles), Holland said.

Though the town looked at a variety of options, plans are to install sirens which are powered by electric utilities but which also have a battery backup, with the backup batteries continually monitored.Holland said that option was better than using battery-powered sirens with batteries charged by local utilities because battery failure could cause the sirens not to sound.

The sirens would be multi-directional - a full 360 degrees - rather than a single rotating siren because there are less mechanical parts to fail, Holland said. Fire department personnel or police could activate the sirens by radio, he said.

The town is seeking bids on the sirens, but Holland said a company in Joplin, Mo., has the sirens available and could have the sirens installed within eight weeks of signing a contract. Holland said it would be a couple of weeks yet before all bids are received and a contract is signed.

News, Pages 1 on 11/17/2010