Lowndes County is seeking grants for what County Administrator Ralph Billingsley projects will be a $250,000-$300,000 project.
The county currently has 25 tornado sirens (the city of Columbus has an additional five), and is looking to add 10-15 more, due to the county”s growth over the past several years.
“We have more residential neighborhoods,” said Cindy Lawrence, director of the Columbus-Lowndes Emergency Management Agency.
Aside from two storm sirens purchased about five years ago, all of the current sirens were purchased in the ”90s.
“Lowndes County has really grown since then, populationwise,” Lawrence noted.
Billingsley told county supervisors last week that the project would mean getting permission from several landowners.
“There are a whole lot of areas, obviously, where we don”t own the property,” he said.
In areas such as subdivisions off Highway 69 and near the YMCA in New Hope, it is difficult, if not impossible, to hear the sirens, Lawrence said.
“If you”re on Hughes Road, (for example), you can”t hear it,” Lawrence noted.
There also is not a storm siren near the airport.
When Emergency Management gets notification from the National Weather Service, they remotely activate the sirens.
They also test the sirens every first Wednesday of the month, unless there is actually is bad weather in the area.
Each siren costs about $20,000, Lawrence said, and the county spends about $8,000 annually on their maintenance, a figure that will increase with the added sirens.
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