Disaster/tornado sirens coming to a few new sites; say goodbye to the last of the yellow Thunderbolts

A new emergency siren might be coming to your neighborhood.

The City Council on Wednesday will conduct a public hearing to consider granting easements for five new sites for emergency warning sirens. A sixth new siren doesn’t need an easement.

The places in Cedar Rapids that are in line for new sirens:

The north boundary of Daniels Park on the south side of J Avenue NE.

Fourth Avenue and Sixth Street SE.

A Avenue and First Street NW.

26^th Avenue and 11^th Street SW.

21^st Street SE at the east property line of Ambroz Recreation Center.

The south side of E Avenue NW on Roosevelt Middle School proprety (doesn’t need an easement).

At the same time, sirens are being removed from five Cedar Rapids locations, including existing spots at Ambroz Recreation Center and Roosevelt Middle School. Existing sirens also are being removed at:

Ralston Foods on 16^th Street NE.

US Bank in downtown.

Lincoln Center, 16^th Avenue and Ninth Street SW.

Renee Nelson, manager of communications and public affairs at FPL Energy Duane Arnold Energy Center, said each new siren costs between $25,000 and $27,000.

The sirens are paid for by the power plant and are required as warning devices in a 10-mile radius of the Duane Arnold nuclear plant.

Of course, the sirens also double as tornado warning sirens, Tom Ulrich, operations officer at the Linn County Emergency Management Agency, noted.

In total, after the upgrades, the Duane Arnold plant will have a network of 144 sirens in the 10-mile radius of the plant. Some of the sirens are in Linn and some in Benton County. Of those, 43 are in Cedar Rapids, seven in Marion and three in Hiawatha.

Nelson said the sirens are controlled and activated primarily by the Linn and Benton emergency management agencies. The addition of six new sirens in Cedar Rapids this year, she said, completes the company’s siren upgrade program begun in 2007. Some sites have been moved, she added, to improve the warning system’s coverage.

Linn County’s Ulrich said the upgrade will eliminate the last of a batch of old Civil Defense sirens that he called yellow Thunderbolts.

 The old sirens, he said, used electric motors that blew air up a pipe and through the horn. The new sires are electric with battery backup. He thought they were a little louder, too.

“Seeing all the upgrades is pretty exciting to me,” Ulrich said.

Go-to guy on police chief interviews is Presbyterian minister

It’s not CBS or CNN. But Robin Kash was on the front line Tuesday at City Hall with a tripod, a small video camera and a still camera to record the interviews of four of the candidates competing to be Cedar Rapids’ next police chief.

A small sign dangling from the tripod explained what Kash was up to. He is Neighborhood Network News.

Kash also videotaped the first chief interview on Saturday and will be there Wednesday to capture the final two chief candidates on video camera.

You can go to his Web site at www.neighborhoodnetworknews.com to see the video replays of each of the seven interviews. Give him a little time to post the latest.

Kash reports that he served as a Presbyterian minister for 40 years, and that he came to Cedar Rapids from Topeka, Kan., in the last couple years to serve for a year as interim pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Cedar Rapids.

In the last 20 years, too, he’s worked in the publishing business.

He now lives with his wife in the Wellington Heights Neighborhood, and over the last several months has launched his neighborhood news network.

He has videotaped some neighborhood meetings and other local matters of neighborhood interest.

On his Web site, he has a video piece on the Noelridge Park Greenhouse. He’s interviewed former neighborhood president and former council member Dale Todd about the building of the new Hy-Vee Food Store on First Avenue NE. He’s talked to Michael Richards, president of the Oak Hill Jackson Neighborhood Association. And there’s 90 minutes of a meeting between council member Monica Vernon and her District 2 council constituents.

Kash says the future of news is the Internet and that’s where he is establishing his upshot effort.

Among his future plans: Videotaping potholes and, perhaps, eyesore properties in neighborhoods, and then going back later and seeing what progress has or has not be made.