Letter from Chip Northrup

Unnecessary Nuisance

The Cooperstown firehouse siren is noise pollution at its worst — far above the Village’s own decibel limit, and totally unnecessary, unlike say a heavy metal concert. Pagers and cell phones can and have replaced these ridiculous noisemakers. If the firemen get a page or a text, they get the address of the fire — they can go straight there — they don’t have to go to the fire station first.

When the Queensbury, N.Y. Fire Department turned their firehouse siren off for repairs, there was a 100% response rate — for 7 years. No volunteer fireman missed getting to the firehouse for lack of a siren. And the neighbors certainly didn’t miss the siren going off at all hours. When the repaired sirens were turned back on, the town protested, and the sirens are going to be replaced as unnecessary nuisances.

There is nothing traditional or necessary about ruining property values with sirens. There is nothing traditional or necessary about ruining people’s hearing. Replace the sirens with pagers and cell phone texts. This will improve property values around the sirens and will make the fire response more efficient.

firerescue1.com/volunteer/articles/residents-of-ny-town-want-fd-siren-turned-off-2rxwePdnUYAHSLen/

Chip Northrup
Cooperstown