Tempe Arizona Sirens

[azman798]

I was surfing the web today because I was bored, and I decided to search "Arizona Sirens". While I was searching I came across safety.com and saw Tempe Arizona and Tempe Town Lake was under one of their top siren installations. Well I never knew Tempe has had Whelen's since 1999, and they are used for Monsoons or for when the Salt River is running or if it is going to flood. Since the City is built all around the river. They also have 3 special siren towers with 2 sirens on each pole, that are painted red. They are located by the town lake with strobes on top. The white strobe indicates wind and the stronger the wind the faster the white strobe will flash. When the yellow or amber strobe comes on, that indicates lightning is present. Then there is the red strobe, when that one comes on the 3 siren towers by the town lake sound their two sirens for a evacuation of the town lake. The rest that cover the city, and are not by the lake are your average Whelens. Although I could not find anything about the sirens being tested I will still look into that and hopefully get to hear my first siren. I will hopefully be able to get out there and look around to see if I can get better quality pictures.

Anyways here is the only picture I could manage to find of one of the siren towers by the lake:

[kagome122885]

I love the look of those Whelens! Whelen is one of the best electronic sirens around, and those things look sharp! The newer sirens have a lower pitch tone than their older sirens, and has a penetrating sound!

[Gil]

About 2 years ago, in July 2005, I was watching The Weather Channel and they were talking about Tempe for some reason, and they showed that siren. From the angle they were looking at, the 2 heads looked connected, and I thought it was a Dual-Headed Whelen. Thats when i was still stupid...

[AllSafe]

Is it a dry lake bed down there?

[azman798]

Is it a dry lake bed down there?

Actually the lake is a man made lake. It is made out of the Salt River, since the Salt River is dry most of the time (it is only used for draining the 4 SRP lakes). It is actually kind of interesting because there are two dams, one on the East and one on the West, and both of them are inflatable dams. So when they need to let the river run they deflate them. Then when the river is done running and there is just the leftover water they inflated the dams and then open the lake again. Actually the last time it ran was 2 years ago but that was barely anything. The last time it ran full was in 1975.