Cold War-Era Relic Responsible For Loud Siren In East Sacramento Monday Night

3 years ago 294

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Cold War-era relic was liable for that large siren blaring crossed respective Sacramento neighborhoods for much than a half-hour Monday night.

People had nary thought wherever it was coming from. The late-night sound startled hundreds of radical successful Sacramento.

“We opened the doorway and it was highly loud,” said Chris Carstens, a Sacramento resident.

Many were rattled from furniture by the alarming sound. People successful Sacramento’s Tahoe Park vicinity accidental the siren was coming from the adjacent SMUD property. The inferior adjacent tweeted retired that it appeared to beryllium a gathering alarm.

But that’s not what it turned retired to be.

“It was frustrating nary 1 had an mentation for it,” Sacramento nonmigratory Jennifer Fearing said.

So conscionable what was making the large noise? A Cold War-era air-raid siren was the culprit.

It was 1 of dozens of civilian defence sirens installed crossed the metropolis backmost successful the 1940s to pass radical of an imminent exigency similar a dam interruption oregon atomic war.

And it tin beryllium heard from much than a mile away.

“My hubby and I joked astir getting nether a table,” Fearing said.

In a existent emergency, these sirens would person been activated by 9-1-1 dispatchers. But the strategy was decommissioned years agone and a dispatcher told CBS13 they don’t adjacent person the instrumentality to crook them connected anymore.

Now, exigency alerts are sent retired by tv, radio, and cellphones.

Still, much than a twelve of these yellowish towers stay crossed Sacramento with adjacent immoderate longtime residents unaware they exist.

“I’ve lived successful Sacramento my full beingness and I’ve ne'er been told we person an aerial raid system,” Carstens said.

“It seems similar if that’s not a strategy we’re utilizing anymore, idiosyncratic ought to permanently chopped the powerfulness to it,” Fearing said.

SMUD says it yet did chopped the powerfulness to the aerial raid alarm.

MORE NEWS: Man, 74, Accused Of Vandalizing Olivehurst Church

The metropolis is inactive trying to find precisely what caused the siren to activate.