The village of Elburn has installed an upgraded control system for its weather warning sirens.

The new system provided by Sentry Siren Inc. allows sirensto be activated through a link to the National Weather Service notification system. The link allows weather sirens to be activated automatically when NWS issues a tornado warning for any part of the village of Elburn.

Elburn Police Chief Nick Sikora

“Previously our only methods of activating our weather warning sirens were by a manual activation controller located inside the police department or via a mobile radio connection in the squad cars,” Elburn Police Chief Nick Sikora said. “Both of those methods required a department member to either be in the Police Department or inside one of the squad cars.

Sikora said police still are able to manually activate sirens from both of those previous methods a well as the “automatic” notification from the weather service.

“This is an improvement for the safety of our residents to offer what should be a quicker activation of our sirens in the event of a weather emergency,” Sikora said. “In particular, this will be a benefit if the officers are busy handling another call for service and no one is on duty at the administrative
office.”

Police remind residents that the outdoor sirens are intended for notifications of people who are outside and away from other traditional means of notifications. Although the outdoor sirens can often be heard inside of homes or businesses, police encourage everyone to have a weather radio and other means of notifications for weather emergencies when you are inside your home or business.

SOURCE: Elburn Police Department news release