New tornado sirens are in the process of being placed throughout the City of Levelland and are expected to be wrapped up by then end of the week.
The Levelland City Council moved forward with bringing the community a new outdoor warning system earlier in the year.
Originally, city staff brought forth a list of projects that would benefit the citizens of Levelland and would be funded through ARPA funds.
On the list was the project of installing an outdoor warning system.
During a regularly scheduled council meeting at the beginning of March, Emergency Management Coordinator Cole Kirkland addressed the council as the system would fall under his supervision once in place.
Regarding request for proposals for the system, the city received four proposals from four different vendors who met the requirements specified.
In each of the proposals, the vendor was expected to provide the cost estimate associated with removing the old system entirely. The also entails the replacement of all seven sirens meeting all the specifications regarding the new system.
Kirkland explained that a mechanical siren system is the preferred system type as it has been proven and battle tested for the last several decades. Electronic siren systems have shown to not be as resilient as a mechanical system as they are very susceptible to damage due to electrical surge, which the community see commonly in thunderstorms and lightning events.
It was explained that the specifications in the RFP were very specific on capability and functionality to ensure the system will perform as expected during the most critical times.
The new siren system will use the same locations for the installation. That ensures a certain level of comfort for the citizens seeing not only the removal of the old system but the installation of the new system, according to city staff.
A specification on the utility pole standard was increased to enable the sirens to be installed at a higher elevation for better coverage but to also ensure they are secure and stable in a very high wind incident.
The functionality of the activation was a an extremely important piece of the product selection. A specification for an app was also included to be used on a smart phone, tablet, or desktop computer.
Specifications also required a control panel at the siren base station to activate the system without use of internet.
That will ensure even during an internet and power outage as well as radio tower communication failure, we can still activate the system effectively.
Proposals from ATI and HQE consisted of an electronic system, which is not recommended and did not meet the standard the city set.
Joe Goddard and American Signal proposals were shown to be mechanical systems.
Some major differences were weatherability of the design. The American signal design uses a fiberglass housing for the siren itself while the Federal Signal (Joe Goddard) system uses an aluminum and steel design. Kirkland added that fiberglass housing will not be nearly as resilient in the West Texas elements as the more rugged aluminum design.
Other standard differences the American Signal does not have an app or mobile activation capability. Their offer was to use virtual pointed network (VPN) connection on a website to activate the sirens remotely.
The council made the decision to allocate ARPA funds for the warning system and moved forward with Joe Goddard-Federal Signal.
The awarded bid amount was set at $245,480.