Re: [cdn-nucl-l] " The blaring sound of a gas leak "

[Randal Leavitt <randal.leavitt@rogers.com>]

Jaro wrote:

> The siren, which wails like an air-raid alarm, has four speakers to carry
> the call in all directions over a radius of at least 1.5 kilometres. About
> 8,000 people live in that radius.

I once learned a lesson from a siren.  As a teenager in Ottawa I was 
riding my bicycle one day when all the air raid sirens went off all 
over the neighbourhood.  I knew what that meant - the Russians had 
launched their ICBMs.  Fifteen minutes to live.  I thought about 
racing for home, then wondered why.  Sitting there in despair I looked 
around the neighbourhood.  No one was paying any attention to the 
sirens!  Was I in the twilight zone?  Did they not hear them? 
Everyone was just going about their business, taking in groceries, 
playing baseball, mowing lawns, etc. - oblivious to the wailing. 
After about twenty minutes the sirens stopped and life continued as 
before.

I later heard that a hunter had fired and hit one of the siren system 
components, causing a short circuit that set off the sirens.  I could 
not confirm this story.

The lesson was that people do not react in the way that they are 
supposed to.  They react in ways that make sense to them in the short 
term.  These siren systems cause more worry and trouble than they 
save.  Their ugliness alone is enough of a reason to remove them.

-- 
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Randal Leavitt        gnupg public key: bbbad04d
Registered User 267646 at http://counter.li.org/