Microblog Memes

We test every first Monday at 11am, but after the siren, there's a voice saying that it's a test, broadcasted over the entire city. It was pretty eerie the first time I heard it.

Everyone knows that tornados never touch down on Wednesdays at noon. When they do... well, we're fucked.

tornado sirens on a noon during wednesday: chill tornado sirens at literally any other time: oh, oh no.

Bit of a rant about my city's system: Our sirens are tested weekly on Mondays, since we live around a lot of chemical and petro plants that can release some nasty stuff if something goes wrong. Haven't had any serious warnings since I moved here years ago, but the sirens themselves can't exactly be relied on either.

Problem is, our system consists of "High Power Speaker Station" (HPSS-32) sirens made by a company called ATI Systems. Holy fuck these sirens are garbage. Speakers manufactured in China that leak rainwater inside and short out the drivers, controllers that completely lack redundancy if one or both of the amplifiers fail, which renders it only half as loud or entirely silent. ATI refuses to support older hardware and forces the city to buy new controllers when the old ones die within a decade, causing the maintenance costs to outweigh having just gone with a less scummy manufacturer.

ATI itself is a horrible company that basically suckers cities into buying their junk by undercutting legitimate manufacturers, then leaves cities hanging when their sirens start rapidly failing. San Francisco recently had to remove their entire system of HPSS16 and HPSS32 units because the system kept failing and had a ton of security vulnerabilities. The system didn't even last two decades, yet the Cold War era STL-10 mechanical sirens they replaced had served the city without issue for half a century.

So yeah, I don't exactly feel safe with our current system. If your city has ATI sirens, don't count on them in an emergency and get a weather radio instead.

Oooh, I get to share my favorite link to Creepy Chicago Sirens

https://youtu.be/84TSpb6UEwc

Nah just check the time, if it's noon you're good. If it ain't noon you check the news and make sure it isn't a scheduled one at 10am for some test because they're planning to replace the sirens with new equipment. If it ain't that because the internet's out then it's probably real but if not you got a moment to see if it's real for another reason

Them's the rules.

Its also pretty convenient because the tests are really short. So if they go long, you get your ass to cover because you're all like "uuhhhhh wtf man it's Wednesday."

Coastal area checking in, same thing for the tsunami alarms. I had some good fun with a tourist when, after they asked what the droning sound was, I replied with "Oh, it's just the tsunami alarm" and then didn't react to it. They were visibly nervous, so I waited a sec and then said "It's just a test 😁"

We get the tornado alarm test on the first Monday of the month at noon. Hope one never hits at that time, because nobody would bat an eye.

It's storm weather awareness week, so they've been running the alarms at random times here outside of Minneapolis. Thankfully, each town does it at different times, and when it's a real alarm we get it from all directions, so it's easy to tell the difference.

First monday of the month for my area

Me living near a nuclear plant, hearing sirens but then realizing it’s a Wednesday at 10 AM.

The power company now has a service that sends a text message on days they’re testing the siren, which is helpful. They won’t use it for an actual emergency, I assume because an actual emergency alert would go out.

We just get noon at the first Monday of the month. But it's an air alarm, not tornado.

MI here, we test ours the first Saturday of the month

Live in Oklahoma. Sirens get tested daily at noon. State doesn't fuck around.

Wait till they hear about the reverse tornadoes that build houses and straighten out all the trees.

The last two places I've lived choose a specific Wednesday of the month to test, and always at noon.

They still test in rain, so every so often you still feel that mild panic again until you look at the clock.

LMAO, they test the sirens once a month on Wednesday, for anyone unfamiliar.

(Edited, I live real close to one, but I don't really pay attention to the day or frequency. Tons of trains around too, you learn to drown it out.)