[Talk-us] Civil Defense Sirens?

[Toby Murray]

Kansas just tested them this morning. There is one on the roof of the
building I work in. But even looking at the high res (<1m) photos
available from the county GIS website, all I can see is "there is
something there" but I can't pick out a distinctive siren shape. This
would definitely take boots on the ground.

As for testing times, isn't that usually coordinated state-wide? Or is
it just local? I thought they did a full test of the emergency alert
system including sirens, TV and radio break-ins at the same time but
I'm not sure.

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Richard Weait <richard at weait.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Jeffrey Ollie <jeff at ocjtech.us> wrote:
>> On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 11:46 AM, Ian Dees <ian.dees at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 11:41 AM, Jeffrey Ollie <jeff at ocjtech.us> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> With the start of Tornado season in the Midwest upon us, I thought it
>>>> would be interesting to map civil defense sirens:
>>>
>>> That would be fun. I'm up for making that a "US Project of the Week" if the
>>> international folks aren't willing to help :).
>
> Are you kidding me?  What part of
> "This is your Project of the Week. Make suggestions.
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Project_of_the_week/Proposals
> "
> leads you to think that suggestions aren't welcome?  ;-)
>
> Please write up a draft Project of the Week.  Example tags are great.
> wiki-format is great.  Pro-tip: The closer you make it to press-ready,
> the more likely it is to be selected.
>
>>> Are the rural ones visible from aerial imagery?
>>
>> Only if you have very very good imagery and know what you are looking
>> at.  In Google's higher resolution imagery you can see them if you
>> know what to look for and then if there's street view imagery
>> available you can confirm.  Obviously you can't trace from Google
>> imagery though.  I'd link to an example on Google if people think
>> that's appropriate.
>
> Better to find an example on wikimedia commons, or to shoot your own
> example photo.  The line between acceptable planning from a
> proprietary map, and unacceptable deriving data from a proprietary map
> is blurry enough to some.  Why confuse it further?
>
>>> Perhaps we could start
>>> researching which states/areas have active sirens?
>
> Better to mobilize the crowd to map them.  We'll get better quality
> from mappers than from an import.  And mappers adding sirens are more
> likely to tag the rest of the park with the playground, sport field an
> water fountain.
>
>> Well, Iowa for sure and I'm sure most of the states that are in
>> "Tornado Alley" have them and are well tested.  In Iowa it's customary
>> to test them at noon on the 1st Saturday of the month unless there is
>> imminent severe weather.
>
> I know of a place the tests at 1pm on Tuesday.  Perhaps that should be
> a tag as well?
>
> man_made=tower
> siren=civil_defense
> siren:test= (something based on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:acces )
>
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