Tornado Sirens

Luckily for those of us in Urbana and Champaign, we have an abundance of tornado sirens to warn us of impending danger. These lifesaving devices that can be heard on the first Tuesday of the month during testing are a relatively old technology.

Tornado sirens were first used in 1970. However, this wasn't the first time the idea of a tornado warning system was thought of. The first plans for tornado warnings were from the 1880s. The idea was to install telegraph wires that could snap in high winds. "The broken telegraph circuit would alert the town by automatically triggering alarm bells and firing a cannon."

It doesn't matter the year; tornadoes are always a threat. However, from 1887-1938, tornado warnings were perceived as a more significant threat, probably because people were proposing to shoot off canons, but really because researchers believed the warnings themselves would promote panic. The U.S. Weather Bureau banned the word tornado in all warnings, and the use of "the word tornado in forecasts was discouraged until 1950." 

The first siren in Champaign-Urbana was installed in 1960 as a dual-purpose siren. Its first use was as an air raid siren during the Cold War. Between Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, and the University of Illinois campus, the area boasts 39 outdoor warning sirens. In 2020, the siren system was upgraded to a digital system.

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"Danny Clay, left, United Sign and Awning Company, and Jim Berhoeven, Fisher Communications, Oakwood, both from Danville, installed a new tornado siren in Sidney Monday morning. They were replacing the old siren, which stopped working last week. The city already had the new one and was going to put it up across town, but when the old one went out, they decided to put it up in its place." Photograph by Robin Scholz, The News-Gazette, March 30, 1998.