As part of my morning routine, I check both the CBC and CTV news apps. I see the headlines about the war in Gaza and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. It feels like a world away for us in North America. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine this article caught my eye https://regina.ctvnews.ca/just-curious/justcurious-does-regina-have-any-air-raid-sirens-1.5828311
The response to the question about air raid sirens is that we have an emergency response app which the government uses to let people know when a serious incident is occurring. The article referenced Alert Ready and here in Alberta we currently use Alberta Emergency Alert. Some communities still have working sirens but they just don’t get used anymore.
Just the mention of sirens transported me back to my childhood. I clearly remember the sound of the siren which was located at our local Fire Hall. To keep a check that the siren was working, it would go off at noon every day; a way to know it was time to go home from school for lunch. In the 1980’s, on a hot summer day, you might hear the siren go off at other times. It was a signal that there was a fire and it let all the volunteer firefighters know to come to the firehall. We lived only a couple blocks away so we would grab our bikes and ride towards the firehall to figure out which way the trucks were going. Sometimes we would follow the trucks to find out where the fire was. The night the high school burned down, it was the siren that alerted the town that it was on fire.
All this to say, never did I once as a child think that the siren’s real purpose was to be used as an air raid siren. Now, as an adult, I realize that it is more than likely why it existed. Even in a small town on the prairies which basically skirts the SK/MB border there was a fear of nuclear war reaching them.
This realization lead me to read this interesting journal article about Air Raid Sirens in Canada. From 1960-1965, 1,700 air raid sirens were installed across the country. Today, almost all of them have been dismantled or forgotten.
https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/mcr/article/view/20452/23613
I had a discussion with my husband who works in Emergency Management. I asked why firehall sirens would not be a good solution for emergencies such as floods and wild fire. He said that too many people today would not know what the sound meant or what to do if they heard it. It doesn’t get enough information out. One of the smaller communities that were affected by the Horse River Wildfire requested that they be able to use their siren in the future to let their community know when one was approaching. At the very least, these sirens make people take notice that something is occurring and it would prompt them to tune in to local radio or TV or check the internet to see what was going on. This past wildfire season, cell service was down for some areas up north so getting information to people became difficult and, while emergency apps are great for people that are on social media, it still may not be the solution to get information out to our most vulnerable population…our seniors.
Today, on Remembrance Day, we should focus on being thankful. Thankful that the actions of brave Canadians in the past mean that our air raid sirens have gone silent. Thankful that the only emergencies coming through the emergency app are wildfires, floods and boil water advisories.
Today, the people in Gaza and Ukraine are not so lucky.
Beautifully written. You brought back many memories of how that air raid siren going off got our full attention. You also reminded me of the real fear that I had of global thermonuclear war in the 1980s.