The City of Carmel-by-the-Sea is testing its early warning siren
CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA, Calif. (KION) On Tuesday, the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea tested its World War II air raid siren located on top of the Carmel Fire Station.
The goal of the test is to reacquaint citizens with the siren and help use it as an early warning siren system. The siren was activated at 6:30 P.M. and is only a test.
In conjunction with the siren, a community wildfire presentation will be taking place at 5:30 to 7:00 P.M. on Tuesday.
The siren is an air raid siren previously used to notify volunteer firefighters to come to work and was tested in 2019. It's now being used in the event of an emergency in the city.
"After what tragically happened in Paradise, we wanted to make sure we were ready to notify our residents quickly, so the siren itself now is only used as an emergency alerting system to get the attention of our residents," said Paul Tomasi, Police Chief of Carmel-by-the-Sea.
This testing of the sirens comes at a crucial point in fire season with the Willow Fire burning nearly 3,000 acres of land nearby. The siren isn't the only form of communication, it works in conjunction with Alert Monterey County, an emergency alert program.
"What we would want is people when they hear the siren to check their phone or listen for the phone to call their house with further information on what to do, whether it be to evacuate, shelter-in-place, and then really what's happening," said Tomasi.
According to the Monterey Fire Chief, currently, fuel moisture levels are quite low, measuring at levels typical in August and the current drought is not helping conditions. The fire chief says there are things that one can do to protect one's home like create a defensible space 0 to 5 feet away from the house.
"You want to eliminate anything flammable there. You don't want to put flammable things on there so no ground cover of vegetation, no wood chips, or tanbark kind of ground cover. You want it to be gravel, stone, or some kind of hardscape," said Gaudenz Panholzer, Monterey Fire Chief.
Residents are told they should sign up for alerts here.
