In the years before cellphones, even before pagers, emergency responders in small towns relied on the town siren to alert volunteers that they needed to get down to the fire hall.
You could be walking down Main Street toward the Ben Franklin five-and-dime to buy a pack of baseball cards when the town siren went off. The owner of the store would rush out to his old International and head on down the road. Everybody in town knew when an emergency was going on.
A simpler time, perhaps, but it’s just one of those things that reminds me of small-town life. With a father who served in the U.S. Navy, we moved around quite a bit when I was young (I went to five different elementary schools, two junior highs and five high schools) and each town had its own character with the town siren playing a major role.
In a few towns where I lived, the siren would go off daily to let you know it was high noon. And naturally, living in the Midwest, the tornado siren was a regular part of life. I remember a couple of pretty scary nights when my parents rushed us kids down into the basement with the siren blaring in the background. (Oddly enough, I remember my mom and dad leaving us in the storm cellar to go outside in the dark night to look for the tornado — looking back, that sure seems kind of dangerous).
This topic of town sirens came up a few weeks ago when I sat down for an interview with Dan Eddy, who had just moved into the position of operations chief with Philomath Fire and Rescue. Back when Eddy was a high school student in Willamina, he was a volunteer with the local fire department.
“You could come on at (age) 16 and you could do all the stuff before some of the more stringent requirements came in — all good safety stuff over the years but you still could come in at 16 and do some of the processes,” Eddy told me. “I can remember, we had a deal set up that if the fire siren went off twice at the high school, they’d let us go to cover the fire truck.”
Eddy’s description struck a chord with my own memories from my younger years. I didn’t volunteer for the fire department — I mean, the closest I got to the fire station was in the fifth grade when I won a hot dog eating contest down at the fire hall in Gothenburg, Nebraska. (I think I actually have a hot dog eating award in a scrapbook somewhere).
But it sparks memories of people leaving their homes to race down to the fire station as the siren blared — oftentimes in the middle of the night. It was a time when folks in small towns relied on each other, when neighbors helped each other during times of need.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are still communities out there that still have the town siren. I know tornado sirens and other types of emergency alert systems are in place today but I’m referring more to the old sirens that used to sound off to alert volunteers that they were needed.
“That’s a small town, you know, everybody chipped in,” Eddy said about Willamina and making a point about wanting to work in a smaller town. “That’s what brought me back to Philomath.”
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).
Go Swedes!