Wright City aldermen have decided to immediately replace all three of the city’s decrepit tornado sirens, rather than wait for a joint purchasing agreement with other municipalities that may have saved some cost.

Wright City had been in long term negotiations with the governments of other area cities and Warren County to jointly purchase up to nine or more sirens, potentially getting a bulk rate discount to upgrade the county’s entire siren network all at once. However, two out of Wright City’s three tornado sirens are currently non-functional, leaving the town in a more pressing situation than its counterparts.

After more than a year of negotiations, Wright City aldermen on July 22 said the severe storm early in July was a reminder that their situation is more urgent than their neighbors’.

“We can’t wait any longer. The county or anywhere else needs to catch up with Wright City. We can’t keep waiting for everyone else to get on the same page,” said Alderman Ramiz Hakim.

Hakim explained that the city had already secured bids from two companies to replace all three of its tornado sirens. Outdoor Warning Consulting submitted a bid of $35,487 per siren, totaling $106,461. Federal Signal submitted a bid of $125,574 for all three sirens. Both bids include installation.

Aldermen voted 4-0 to accept the bid from Outdoor Warning Consulting, with the condition that the Warren County 911 dispatch center must approve the technical specifications of the new sirens. 

Emergency dispatchers are the ones who set off the tornado sirens, and local leaders have said one of the long-term goals of replacing the sirens across Warren County is so that each town’s warning system functions more seamlessly with the dispatch center.

Prior to the vote, City Administrator Jim Schuchmann said the reason prior siren discussions had taken more than a year was to ensure that none of the towns upgrade to sirens that require the dispatch center to operate multiple, noncompatible systems during an emergency.

“I’ll break it down with an analogy: We don’t want to buy Betamax if everybody else is going to VHS,” Schuchmann commented.

Warren County Emergency Management Director Jim Sharp also addressed the aldermen before their vote, saying local municipalities generally agree with a joint purchasing plan, and the county government is even interested in expanding the siren network to more places. He said a professional survey was conducted in July of all existing siren equipment in the county to get a better idea of what upgrades are needed. 

“Before we could move forward, we needed to figure out exactly what everything was. You can’t really get from ‘A’ to ‘B’ if you don’t know where ‘A’ is,” Sharp said.

Sharp also noted that the sole intended function of tornado sirens is to provide a warning for people outside, and that residents should take advantage of other weather notification systems whenever possible.

After Wright City aldermen voted not to wait for a purchasing agreement with their neighbors, Sharp said he would help coordinate information with the 911 dispatch to ensure there aren’t any technical concerns with the new sirens.