On Saturday, emergency sirens rang out across San Luis Obispo County during the county Office of Emergency Services' annual test.
Community members and officials say it's important for the county to test the warning systems.
“When it happens, you want to make sure it really, really works,” Bernadette Monterrosa, a San Luis Obispo resident, said.
“We can put a bunch of money, we can put millions and millions of dollars into notification systems,” McKenzie Taffe, a Morro Bay resident, said. “But if we're not testing them every year to make sure that they work and that people know what they're for, then it's not really worth the money.”
Hidden in plain sight across the county, these sirens are used as an early warning signal for a variety of emergencies.
Kelly Van Buren is the Emergency Services & Nuclear Power Plant Program Manager for the San Luis Obispo County Office of Emergency Services.
“The sirens are really installed because we have a commercial nuclear power plant,” Van Buren said. “That being said, the siren is available for any local emergency when the public has to take action. So we could use it for a tsunami, maybe a dam failure, hazardous materials conditions.”
On Saturday afternoon, these sirens were put to the test. All 130 of them sounded off for three-minute intervals at noon and 12:30 p.m.
Van Buren says two tests were necessary to make sure the system and its backup are running correctly.
When asked what goes into setting off these alarms for testing, Van Buren said that it was a straightforward process.
“It's actually really simple,” she explained. “It's a very easy, user-friendly interface [that] the sheriff's watch commander actually is able to activate. We do have them pre-built in groups, so you can do all the sirens at once, which is the easiest.”
If an emergency really does happen, residents say they have a general idea of what to do.
“I tune into my radio,” Monterrosa says.
“In Morro Bay, I live at sea level. I think [I] would go uphill,” Taffe said.
For more information on what to do in an emergency or if you hear the sirens, visit this link.
