BERLIN– Early on the morning of July 4, as forecasts predicted Hurricane Arthur would drench the Mid-Atlantic, a malfunctioning fire department alarm frightened dozens of guests staying downtown.
The fire whistle, located behind Town Hall, went off at around 6 a.m., staying on for nearly a half hour before town workers were able to shut it down. Confused guests at the Atlantic Hotel and Holland House feared the worst, recalling tornado sirens in their respective hometowns.
Berlin Fire Chief David Lewis said the weather caused the malfunction.
“It caused a relay cue to burn up on our siren on Franklin Avenue, which caused the siren to hold open for that location and for the one downtown.”
Lewis confirmed the town ultimately silenced the alarm.
The fire department responded to a carbon monoxide detector on Ann Drive at approximately 3 a.m. on July 4. Ironically, the carbon monoxide alert was also a malfunction. Multiple gas meters found no traces of carbon monoxide.
“They got back and they were doing their reports for that call, and I guess during the storm the relay got wet and caused (the alarm) to burn up,” Lewis said. “The fire whistle started blowing all by itself; there was no call when the fire whistle got stuck.”
In his 12 years with the Fire Department, Lewis could only recall one other time when the alarm had malfunctioned.
“It doesn’t happen often,” he said. “I know it caused quite a few inconveniences to some businesses uptown, which is something that shouldn’t happen.”
Town Administrator Laura Allen said the downtown fire whistle can be extremely disruptive.
“When it goes off you really can’t hear anything or talk or do any work,” she said. “It’s disruptive to pretty much everybody.”
Several business owners in the area declined to comment on the incident, but Allen said she met with Holland House Innkeeper Jim Quick.
“My understanding from talking to the folks at the Holland House was that they had several guests – a full house in fact – that were packing and expected to have to evacuate,” she said. “What I’m also hearing from other business owners is that the same thing happened at the Atlantic Hotel.
“One of the issues with the fire alarm is that it’s being used for multiple purposes, and we’re having so many new people come to town that they might not know,” Allen continued. “I’m relatively new to the town myself, and when the fire alarm first went off I thought it was a hurricane or an evacuation. It’s not the common arrangement that I’m used to.”
The town has had conversations with the Fire Department about moving the alarm, as well as suspending it in the evening.
“There’s a lot going on in Berlin, but it’s not that busy from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.,” Allen said. “I think (suspending it) would go a long way towards helping a lot of our small businesses in town. And they are looking at that. They’re also looking at other places they can relocate their siren to another location in town to make sure that we’re safe and that we’re getting the best service from them that we can.”
Allen said another siren similarly malfunctioned a few months prior at the fire station.
“It was going off repeatedly, and we’ve been working with them to replace the wiring and to bring it up to more current wiring so it doesn’t happen again.”
The current wiring is more than 30 years old.
“Our electric utilities director was working with them to get the wire in the conduit replaced,” Allen said. “We were responsible for some of that. The part that’s in the building – we needed to find an electrician for that. We’ve been going through that process.”
Allen speculated that the sirens have also been going off more frequently.
“Initially they would just probably just go off every once in a while, but as developments occurred over time they’re going off pretty frequently. It’s loud, and when it goes off in (Town Hall) it’s pretty hard for us to work. I’m sure it’s the same thing for others. So the request was doing something a little different.”
Allen said the fire department in Delmar is also looking into suspending its sirens.
“I think communities all across the area are looking at providing services that are less negatively impactful on the community,” she said.
Lewis said the department had already decreased the duration of the alarm, allowing it to cycle just two or three times.
“If you go to Snow Hill, their’s cycles 16 times and stays on four five minutes,” he said. “We chose years ago to down that because it was unnecessary and more of a nuisance than anything. Especially with businesses growing … the last thing we want is for somebody to lose money because of it.”
The fire whistles were originally installed in the days before pagers and cell phones.
“Somebody would have to come up to the firehouse and push the button, and that would alert the town,” Lewis said. “A lot of businesses would close up shop because a lot people in the community were involved in the department and they would come to the fire house.
“Eventually, as it modernized there was no longer a need for someone to come up here and push the button,” Lewis continued. “So then the fire siren would just blow more or less to let the community know. It’s kind of like a cautious warning.”
Lewis believes the alert still serves a function.
“It’s kind of a heads up to let people know,” he said. “We realize that that’s not an issue so much at night time … so we’ve looked at the option of not blowing it downtown (at night).”
The Fire Department has an active whistle at the station on North Main Street, along with the two others near Town Hall and on Franklin Avenue. Currently, the alarms are wired to run together in tandem.
“My personal feeling is that … the town is a lot bigger than just this little half-mile circuit,” Lewis said. ‘The sirens have to be here for our civil defense purpose. We talked about educating the public, and the town should also educate the community, especially us being in a hurricane zone, that the fire whistle blows different things. Ours blows in a cycle for a fire call. If it’s a true emergency, like a hurricane or a tornado, it goes high and stays high.”
During the July 4 malfunction, the alarm stayed high.
“That’s probably why (hotel guests) freaked out because that’s how their fire sirens work,” Lewis said. “The last thing we want to do is cause confusion. But in the best interest of serving the community the fire department needs to make some kind of public service announcement or something that the town can also pass on to guests and tourists that this is a tradition that we do. The fire department is about tradition – it’s been around hundreds of years – and we want it to grow and prosper as much as the community does.”
A petition to remove the downtown fire whistle briefly circulated downtown businesses, then appeared to have vanished.
Lewis said he spoke with several business owners about the matter.
“I said, ‘I just want you to know that we are working (on this) – we’re not ignoring you and I don’t want you to feel ignored,’” he said. “That may have been the general consensus to start the petition. We talked and I understood where the petition was coming from.
“We’re definitely working on it,” Lewis continued. “The ultimate goal is to serve the community the best way that we can. We want to educate people so that they know why the fire whistle blows – we don’t want people think we just do it for fun or to inconvenience them.
“A temporary fix is to not blow it during the nighttime hours – to not interrupt the guests that are sleeping,” Lewis said. “We’re definitely working on it. We’re going to meet and try to come back with the best recommendation.”
The fire whistle, located behind Town Hall, went off at around 6 a.m., staying on for nearly a half hour before town workers were able to shut it down. Confused guests at the Atlantic Hotel and Holland House feared the worst, recalling tornado sirens in their respective hometowns.
Berlin Fire Chief David Lewis said the weather caused the malfunction.
“It caused a relay cue to burn up on our siren on Franklin Avenue, which caused the siren to hold open for that location and for the one downtown.”
Lewis confirmed the town ultimately silenced the alarm.
The fire department responded to a carbon monoxide detector on Ann Drive at approximately 3 a.m. on July 4. Ironically, the carbon monoxide alert was also a malfunction. Multiple gas meters found no traces of carbon monoxide.
“They got back and they were doing their reports for that call, and I guess during the storm the relay got wet and caused (the alarm) to burn up,” Lewis said. “The fire whistle started blowing all by itself; there was no call when the fire whistle got stuck.”
In his 12 years with the Fire Department, Lewis could only recall one other time when the alarm had malfunctioned.
“It doesn’t happen often,” he said. “I know it caused quite a few inconveniences to some businesses uptown, which is something that shouldn’t happen.”
Town Administrator Laura Allen said the downtown fire whistle can be extremely disruptive.
“When it goes off you really can’t hear anything or talk or do any work,” she said. “It’s disruptive to pretty much everybody.”
Several business owners in the area declined to comment on the incident, but Allen said she met with Holland House Innkeeper Jim Quick.
“My understanding from talking to the folks at the Holland House was that they had several guests – a full house in fact – that were packing and expected to have to evacuate,” she said. “What I’m also hearing from other business owners is that the same thing happened at the Atlantic Hotel.
“One of the issues with the fire alarm is that it’s being used for multiple purposes, and we’re having so many new people come to town that they might not know,” Allen continued. “I’m relatively new to the town myself, and when the fire alarm first went off I thought it was a hurricane or an evacuation. It’s not the common arrangement that I’m used to.”
The town has had conversations with the Fire Department about moving the alarm, as well as suspending it in the evening.
“There’s a lot going on in Berlin, but it’s not that busy from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.,” Allen said. “I think (suspending it) would go a long way towards helping a lot of our small businesses in town. And they are looking at that. They’re also looking at other places they can relocate their siren to another location in town to make sure that we’re safe and that we’re getting the best service from them that we can.”
Allen said another siren similarly malfunctioned a few months prior at the fire station.
“It was going off repeatedly, and we’ve been working with them to replace the wiring and to bring it up to more current wiring so it doesn’t happen again.”
The current wiring is more than 30 years old.
“Our electric utilities director was working with them to get the wire in the conduit replaced,” Allen said. “We were responsible for some of that. The part that’s in the building – we needed to find an electrician for that. We’ve been going through that process.”
Allen speculated that the sirens have also been going off more frequently.
“Initially they would just probably just go off every once in a while, but as developments occurred over time they’re going off pretty frequently. It’s loud, and when it goes off in (Town Hall) it’s pretty hard for us to work. I’m sure it’s the same thing for others. So the request was doing something a little different.”
Allen said the fire department in Delmar is also looking into suspending its sirens.
“I think communities all across the area are looking at providing services that are less negatively impactful on the community,” she said.
Lewis said the department had already decreased the duration of the alarm, allowing it to cycle just two or three times.
“If you go to Snow Hill, their’s cycles 16 times and stays on four five minutes,” he said. “We chose years ago to down that because it was unnecessary and more of a nuisance than anything. Especially with businesses growing … the last thing we want is for somebody to lose money because of it.”
The fire whistles were originally installed in the days before pagers and cell phones.
“Somebody would have to come up to the firehouse and push the button, and that would alert the town,” Lewis said. “A lot of businesses would close up shop because a lot people in the community were involved in the department and they would come to the fire house.
“Eventually, as it modernized there was no longer a need for someone to come up here and push the button,” Lewis continued. “So then the fire siren would just blow more or less to let the community know. It’s kind of like a cautious warning.”
Lewis believes the alert still serves a function.
“It’s kind of a heads up to let people know,” he said. “We realize that that’s not an issue so much at night time … so we’ve looked at the option of not blowing it downtown (at night).”
The Fire Department has an active whistle at the station on North Main Street, along with the two others near Town Hall and on Franklin Avenue. Currently, the alarms are wired to run together in tandem.
“My personal feeling is that … the town is a lot bigger than just this little half-mile circuit,” Lewis said. ‘The sirens have to be here for our civil defense purpose. We talked about educating the public, and the town should also educate the community, especially us being in a hurricane zone, that the fire whistle blows different things. Ours blows in a cycle for a fire call. If it’s a true emergency, like a hurricane or a tornado, it goes high and stays high.”
During the July 4 malfunction, the alarm stayed high.
“That’s probably why (hotel guests) freaked out because that’s how their fire sirens work,” Lewis said. “The last thing we want to do is cause confusion. But in the best interest of serving the community the fire department needs to make some kind of public service announcement or something that the town can also pass on to guests and tourists that this is a tradition that we do. The fire department is about tradition – it’s been around hundreds of years – and we want it to grow and prosper as much as the community does.”
A petition to remove the downtown fire whistle briefly circulated downtown businesses, then appeared to have vanished.
Lewis said he spoke with several business owners about the matter.
“I said, ‘I just want you to know that we are working (on this) – we’re not ignoring you and I don’t want you to feel ignored,’” he said. “That may have been the general consensus to start the petition. We talked and I understood where the petition was coming from.
“We’re definitely working on it,” Lewis continued. “The ultimate goal is to serve the community the best way that we can. We want to educate people so that they know why the fire whistle blows – we don’t want people think we just do it for fun or to inconvenience them.
“A temporary fix is to not blow it during the nighttime hours – to not interrupt the guests that are sleeping,” Lewis said. “We’re definitely working on it. We’re going to meet and try to come back with the best recommendation.”