As is typical at noon on a clear Saturday, the storm sirens in Kingfisher blared across the city last weekend.

It’s the standard test that’s conducted each week unless there’s inclement weather in the area.

The big news is…the sirens worked.

It’s big because that wasn’t the case less than a week prior when, after a tornado warning was issued for the city the night of June 17, Kingfisher Fire Department personnel attempted to activate the system to no avail.

Although many residents have other means of receiving necessary weather alerts, it was still concerning to city leaders when the system failed.

The exact reason is still unknown, however, there is at least some form of improvement on the way, said Kingfisher Fire Chief Ryan Gibson.

What happened when it failed?

“It could be a number of things,” said Gibson.

He was relaying the news from Andy Goddard of Goddard Enterprises, a mass notification systems specialist who has serviced the aged Kingfisher system for several years.

Goddard was in Kingfi sher last Friday to inspect the system after its failure.

The system worked mostly - on Saturday during the test run.

Four of the six sirens inside city limits worked. The two that didn’t were located at the county fairgrounds and the one at the city’s Street Department building near Bowman Avenue and Third Street.

Gibson said Goddard

re was scheduled to be repairing those two sirens early in the week.

Another issue discovered, said Gibson, was the activation system.

It’s one that requires several steps before citizens can be alerted.

“He told us it’s not set up right and it shouldn’t be that difficult to activate,” Gibson said. “He told us it should be one or two steps and not six.”

As he stated in an article in the KT&FP last week, Gibson noted the current sirens are old and the city is seeking ways to potentially fund new sirens. (Note: See related story on Page 1 of this edition.)

City purchasing updated activation system

On Tuesday morning, Gibson told the KT&FP that the city is purchasing the CommanderOne LE warning activation system.

Goddard provided a quote of $12,500, which Gibson said was under the initial estimate.

The new cloud-based system will work with the current sirens and will also work with the new ones should they be purchased.

The biggest change is that it can be activated by the National Weather Service, which is the agency that issues severe weather watches and warnings, Gibson said. It will also allow the sirens to be activated not just from the fire department, but select personnel will be able to do so either from a smart phone or computer. Gibson said it’s the same system currently used by both Hennessey and Okarche.

Gibson said he and the KFD captains will be among those able to activate it remotely and that Kingfisher County Emergency Director Ryan Deatherage will likely be among the others.

“There would be a lot more redundancy than only being able to do it from one place,” Gibson said. “And we felt like that was important.”

Gibson projected the new system to be in place within about a month.

“He said it takes a couple of weeks to get the equipment in once he orders it, then he’ll install it for us,” Gibson said.