I can hear the noontime test sirens from my house.

[crispini]

Who knew? It must be a test, it's noon, but either they don't test it all that often, or they don't test it on weekends for sure -- because I can't remember hearing it before.

The funny thing is that when visiting my grandmother's house, in a very small southern town, they would blow the sirens at noon, but this is in a major metropolitan area (albeit a residential area.) I didn't realize anyone did that anymore.

Who else can hear it from where they live? And who else wonders if that would do any of us any effing good anymore? Is that a left over from the cold war or what?

[CBGLuthier]

1. Well, I can always hear them here

But I live in OKC and we have sirens about every mile or two. Ours are tested every Satuday at noon unless there is already bad weather.

I don't know for sure about where you are but if they ever have tornadoes then that would be the primary function. If a nuke comes, I am sure you know what your only recourse is;

Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye. ;-)

[crispini]

2. Yeah, must be tornadoes. Texas.

I'd think you'd hear the tornado before you heard the siren though! :)

[CBGLuthier]

8. no fortunately

We have a very good system. We are a huge city and they all go off at once in the event of a tornado and they will wake you out of a deep sleep. But I live within 1000 feet of one.

We actually got a whole bunch of new ones after the 99 F5 tornado and they are very, very loud. :-)

[colinmom71]

3. You must live where I do!

Yeah, my suburban GA county does county wide tests of the tornado siren system at noon once a month. Makes for a rude wake up if I'm napping while the kid is at school... We're only a 1/4 mile from our local siren so I hear it quite well during every test. I've gotten so used to it that if a tornado ever hit at noon, I probably wouldn't take the warning as a real threat.

Funny thing though, I was raised in a small south GA city and don't recall the tornado sirens *ever* being tested there!

[malta blue]

4. I lived in a house a couple of years ago where the siren

went off at 6pm every day. My little one called it the dinner bell.

[SoCalDem]

5. Our tornado siren was right next to my boys' bedrooms

they always seemed to test them during naptime $#@&^(_)^$&&9:grr:


of course when we actually HAD a tornado, they never went off :shrug:

[CBGLuthier]

10. according to a thread yesterday

6:00 pm sirens in a town were usually a signal for black folk to leave as they were not welcome after dark, the so called sundown towns and most of them were in the north.

[crispini]

11. I saw that!

Pretty wild if you ask me.

[Pithlet]

6. They always tested them where I was growing up

They test them around here, too, on a weekly basis. I can barely hear them, though, which worries me, because if it's storming out the wind, rain and thunder would easily drown out the siren.

[Graf Orlok]

7. They do that once a month

here in MN, testing those damn sirens. It's usually done the first Wednesday of the month.

It's really loud and annoying.

[crispini]

12. Well, dang, that's what today is!

Maybe that's it.

[Jara sang]

9. beginning of the month

is when they test them here

[Hell Hath No Fury]

13. Here in San Francisco...

we have them all over the city, including neighborhoods. They test every Tuesday at noon and there isn't a place you can't hear them. We have a new system that actually has a voice that says "This is a test" -- it's all very Morlock/"the Time Machine".

Ours are a left over from the bomb scare.

One night back in the 80s our neighborhood siren went off -- but it wasn't Tuesday and it wasn't noon. Scared the shit out of Mom and me. :) We immediately turned on the news to see if something serious was happening in our town. It was just a glitch in the system.

[Enraged_Ape]

14. In Dallas they do it the first Wednesday of every month

And it never failed to scare the you-know-what out of me. I hated it.