MANSFIELD — The equipment has arrived for the City of Mansfield’s first-ever tornado warning sirens, though final locations have not been announced.
Safety-Service Director Keith Porch told Mansfield lawmakers on Tuesday night the city has identified the sites for the four sirens.
“I’m not going to disclose those locations yet, until we meet with Vasu (Communications Inc.) to make sure,” he said during a City Council meeting.
“The sirens are powered by solar. Some of those locations have trees. We want to make sure that it’s going to be able to power those sirens before we notify the media and you folks of where they’re going to be,” Porch said.
“We want to make sure we have an alternate power source of electricity, in case in future years we want to hook power up to them. But hopefully, the solar can get us through,” he said.
Mansfield City Council in October approved spending $160,000 from the city’s share of American Rescue Plan Act funds on the four sirens, a first in the history of the 217-year-old city founded in 1808.
The work is being done in conjunction with the Richland County Emergency Management Agency, which oversees 44 sirens throughout the rest of the county. The contract is with Vasu, which also handles sirens for the county EMA.
Mayor Jodie Perry said in October tornado sirens had been discussed previously.
“Whenever there’s storms in the spring, we get calls and comments (from citizens) and the City of Mansfield does not have tornado sirens,” Perry said at the time.
“This money would allow us to partner with the county EMA to start installing sirens in the city. We see that as a really good partnership with the county EMA, providing extra safety and alerts to our citizens.
“We’ve had some pretty bad storms the last few years, so we think this is a good step forward,” the mayor said.
Porch said Tuesday the four sirens will cover 70 to 80 percent of the city.
“The tornado sirens have a one-square mile coverage of sound is what they are telling us they will cover,” he said.
“I believe if we wanted full coverage, we would potentially need to add maybe two more sirens down the road, but from north to south, I think we have good coverage,” Porch said.
In May 2024, Vasu was awarded a $193,837 contract by the Richland County Board of Commissioners to upgrade the 44 tornado sirens operated by the county EMA.
County commissioners approved the Vasu proposal, which upgraded the county’s network of tornado sirens to digital from the current VHF status. It was paid for from the county’s share of ARPA funds.
“This project will enhance communications and functionality of the sirens,” county EMA Director Rebecca Owens said at the time.
The upgrade did not include four sirens maintained independently by the City of Shelby.
