The city of North Little Rock has completed its installation of new tornado sirens, hoping to improve the safety of its residents
Updates come after the passage of a recent sales tax increase.
Mayor Joe Smith held a brief meeting at Burns Park Tuesday, where one of the sirens are located, letting everyone know about the changes.
He doesn't want anyone in the community startled by the new, and very loud, sound tomorrow.
“It's going to be a different sound, we're going to have a voice monologue on it saying “This is a test”, said Smith.
There are 16 new tornado sirens in 16 different locations around North Little Rock.
“This is the electronics cabinet that receives the signals, the speakers are what emit the sound,” David Miller, with Safety Com Inc., added demonstrating specs of the new system.
Instead of three minutes, like previous sirens dating back 50 years, the replacements are only 49 seconds long.
The city's new sales tax, approved in 2017, helped allocate $30,000 for each one.
“We had a five-year program and due to the fact that our financial situation at the city was pretty sound in the last few years, we've been able to turn that into three years,” said Smith.
Previous tornado sirens were installed in 1970, the new software allows for voice instructions.
Sirens will start off with this message, “This is a test of the emergency warning system.”
Followed by the sound of a siren and concluding message, “This has been a test of the emergency warning system.”
Right now, no siren in the city is more than three years old.
“Some cities are going with social media as their warning. After talking to a lot of people in our community, they really like the safety of the sirens,” Smith said.
North Little Rock’s emergency warning system will test and activate all 16 sirens Wednesday at noon.