SIREN WARNING SYSTEM APPROVED BY COMMISSION

Residents in Houston county are now one step closer to being a lot safer. At their regular meeting yesterday, the Houston County Commission decided to accept a bid on a siren warning system for Houston County. Houston County Commissioners accepted a $321-thousand dollar bid to establish a siren warning system in Houston County. H.C. Commission Chairman Mark Culver said that Houston County is one of a couple of counties in Alabama that doesn`t have a siren warning system in place. He said, "we do have three siren in the county, but they are maintained and used solely for the Farley Nuclear Plant." The system will comprise of 24 sirens, placed strategically throughout the county and intended to be used for public threats ranging from terrorist acts to severe weather warnings. Thirteen or fourteen will be placed in Dothan, and the remaining nine or so will be out in the rest of the county. They will be stretched out across the county so as many people as possible can hear them. The Wiregrass Red Cross Chapter, has been urging City and County Commissioners for over a year to commit to the siren system. Disastr relief is a vital part of the Wiregrass Red Cross, and these sirens would have the potential to stop disasters. The commissioners said they had been pushing for this for one and a half years...for these sirens and to help protect the people of Houston County. "The warning sirens are a much needed addition to a county that currently uses a paging system, and the media as its way of alerting the public to a safety threat", says EMA Community Coordinator, Clark Matthews. In another note, newly elected District One Commissioner, Curtis Harvey, attended his first H.C. Commission meeting.