Annual maintenance and testing of San Luis Obispo County’s Early Warning System sirens began on Monday.
Raymond Brookman recently moved to Morro Bay and says he's heard a siren before but was confused about what it meant.
“It was near the water near the docks. They might be tsunami warnings, or they might just be boats going out or whatever. I usually don't know exactly what they are,” Brookman said.
The sirens were installed as a requirement related to the operation of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, but they can be activated for any local emergency.
San Luis Obispo County Emergency Services Coordinator Anita Konopa says that in an emergency, the sirens will sound for a full three minutes, and that’s when you should take action.
“The sirens themselves make a sound, so that loud noise tells you to go into listen to a TV or radio station to find out what you need to do because there is something happening that you need to take emergency action for,” Konopa said.
Each year, the Early Warning System sirens are inspected and go through a series of tests to make sure they’re ready to go in case of an emergency.
There are a couple of different tests the sirens go through each year but for this inspection, each siren goes through a brief growl test. It's a short, low-volume test that lasts for just a few seconds.
“If you're close to the siren, you may hear a little something but it's not the full-scale test that we do in August that goes for several minutes,” Konopa said.
The county has 131 emergency sirens located from Cayucos to Nipomo. Siren maintenance will take place Monday through Friday and will continue through July.
In the coming weeks, crews will be working on the sirens in San Luis Obispo, Los Osos, Morro Bay, and Cayucos.
For more information about the county's Early Warning System sirens and how to prepare for an emergency, click here.
