The noontime siren will be heard again at the fire department headquarters on JFK Boulevard.
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Listen up, folks. Sea Isle City plans to resume the tradition of sounding its fire siren at noon.
To some, it was a quaint, small-town way of reminding the public that it was midday. Others, though, complained it was an ear-piercing annoyance.
For years, Sea Isle would activate the wailing siren each day at the fire department headquarters on John F. Kennedy Boulevard to let the public know it was precisely noon.
However, the city silenced the siren recently following complaints from some members of the public it was too loud.
But there has also been “some sentiment” from the public in favor of the siren, so the city will resume sounding it again each day at noon starting Wednesday, City Business Administrator George Savastano said.
Savastano spoke about the siren during a City Council meeting Tuesday after a Sea Isle resident, Anne Organ, asked the governing body why it no longer goes off at noon each day.
Savastano explained that the city stopped activating the siren after “more people than not” complained about it and wanted it kept off.
“It’s loud,” Council President J.B. Feeley said.
Now that the siren will be heard again at noon, the city plans to have it go off only at the fire department headquarters at JFK Boulevard next to City Hall.
Previously, the city had also activated the fire alarms at noon at the Dealy Field athletic complex on 59th Street and the Townsends Inlet fire station on 86th Street before they, too, were stopped.
The sirens at Dealy Field and the Townsends Inlet fire station will remain silent at noon, even after the one at JFK Boulevard is turned on again, Savastano said.
Savastano emphasized that the city will continue to sound the sirens – no matter what the time of day or night – when there are emergency calls for the volunteer fire department.
Councilman Frank Edwardi Jr., whose late father, Frank Edwardi Sr., had served as Sea Isle’s fire chief, said it would be “ridiculous” for the city not to sound the sirens during an emergency.
“We should leave it on and not even think about it,” Edwardi said of activating the fire alarm during emergencies.
Sea Isle’s volunteer firefighters often rely on the sirens to call them to the firehouse during emergencies, Savastano said. The firefighters need the sirens because they may not always have their cellphones on for fire calls or text alerts when they are at work for their full-time jobs, he explained.
