The Siren Board

carexpertandy wrote:

Brendan W wrote:Station #26 in what I am assuming is the '60s. You can see a thunderbolt installation, but the siren is cropped out in the picture. According to civildefensemuseum.com's 1974 Dallas siren site map, this is listed as a siren site. The old station does not exist though, as a new one was built in 2002 according to the DFD's website

I think I can see the blower on the left there. Also, look below the bottom of this picture, and you will see #26 and 9-6-69. So you're right about the 60s!

That's probably an AC unit. With the dallas thunderbolt setups, the blowers were at the base of the pole. Thanks for pointing out that date, I didn't notice it at first.

You can see the blower in the shrubs on the left of the building.

That is definitely the Thunderbolt installation. The two-width pole and conduit pretty much jump right out...Many Dallas T-bolts are like that. I can't quite pick out the blower, though.

Got another string of Dallas Thunderbolt photos.

Found another one. Station 8 on February 26th, 1971.


Station 56 in the mid '80s


Station 43 on December 22nd, 1969


Station 47 on January 14th, 1970


Station 44 sometime in the late '80s (I think)


Station 45 in an undated photo


Station 46 in what I think may be a very late '50s or early '60s photo (judging by the engines in the bay)


Undated photo of Station 36


Undated photo of Station 39


Station 34 on August 30th, 1969


Station 17 from sometime in the '80s. The thunderbolt is on the left, in the trees.


Undated photo of Station 32


Station 12 in early 1991 according to the website


I wonder, does anyone have a map of all of the old Dallas Thunderbolt installations? I think it would be cool to cross reference the photos to the map and see if any of the sirens in the photos still exist.

Brendan W wrote:This is fire station #7. Again no publication date, but I think this may be late 80's or early '90s.

Brendan W wrote: Station 44 sometime in the late '80s (I think)

The ambulances in these pictures date them to 1992 at the very earliest, when the ninth generation Ford F-series was introduced.

Brendan W wrote:I wonder, does anyone have a map of all of the old Dallas Thunderbolt installations? I think it would be cool to cross reference the photos to the map and see if any of the sirens in the photos still exist.

I have no idea if I ever completed it or not, but here's the map I made one night a while back of the majority of the old system. I know there's obviously some missing looking at the number sequence, but I think the case with those was that I just didn't add them in because they're no longer in existence nor is there any evidence of their former location.

murrfarms wrote:

Brendan W wrote:I wonder, does anyone have a map of all of the old Dallas Thunderbolt installations? I think it would be cool to cross reference the photos to the map and see if any of the sirens in the photos still exist.

I have no idea if I ever completed it or not, but here's the map I made one night a while back of the majority of the old system. I know there's obviously some missing looking at the number sequence, but I think the case with those was that I just didn't add them in because they're no longer in existence nor is there any evidence of their former location.

Thanks Ian!

According to the map, it looks like the ones at the older fire stations are still there except for the one at station 26 (I think they pulled a DeKalb County at that one.) I guess the sirens sometimes went down with the old stations when new ones were built?

What is a DeKalb County?

gman 1 wrote:What is a DeKalb County?

It's something I came up with. DeKalb County, Georgia, back in 1989 when they removed their thunderbolts, only removed the controls, blowers, and heads, and not the poles. So, as a result, there are poles with blower pipes on the side of them left of the old installations. In the case at Station 26 in Dallas, they removed the blower and head and left the pole.

I stumbled upon this while doing a quick google search out of boredom. This photo was taken in Wichita, Kansas sometime in the 1970's I think. Of course it is not my photo.