Fallen Tornado Siren

While out on today’s ride I was finally able to get photos of the tornado siren on 22 Mile just east of M-53 which was knocked down after apparently being hit by a car. Per the decal inside of the Vortex Gear Drive Rotor this is made by Whelen Engineering, and after digging around a bit this appears to be part of Whelen’s Vortex series. I probably should have looked closer at the outside of the control box to see more specifically what it is.

This company was featured in an episode of How It’s Made about warning sires which can be viewed here on their site.

Seeing it laying at the side of the road for the past couple weeks it’s hard not to fantasize about picking up the siren and taking it home to play. Ignoring the illegality (and potential terrorism charges) related to this, there’s some serious practical concerns… Like, how exactly does one activate a tornado siren anywhere but the remotest parts of Michigan without attracting significant attention? After all, the literature I was finding online claims 129dB at 100 feet. Playing with this would be a bad, bad idea.

For some more photos of this fallen siren, click here. There is also a PDF listing all of Whelen’s Mass Notification products available here, and this is a series of tutorial videos showing how to use their online siren location planning software. Finally, this map lists all the warning siren locations in Macomb County. Apparently the place where Danielle and I live is technically just slightly outside of listed coverage areas.