3.12.2005

sirens

Man I haven't blogged in a while. Got slammed with a lot of homework and trying to rescue my Toastmasters club from an all time low membership. On top of that planning a stagette, a birthday and our trip to Cabo San Lucas ($443 pp on United.com covers 3 nights hotel, flight and all taxes, deal huh??). Not sure how I always end up with so much on my plate. I can't wait to go to Cabo.

So the weirdest thing happened this week. I was taking my 5 block walk to school from my car when I heard a voice coming from the sky. "This is a test of the public outdoor warning system". I had no idea there were speakers mounted all over the place. I actually couldn't see them but they must be on some lamp posts or something. I guess leftover from the cold war era when the threat of nuclear attack was what kids in school practiced for. After that muffled announcement, these sirens went off. I guess that's what air raid sirens sound like?? I imagined myself standing there in the 1950s hearing the sirens and fearing an attack from the evil communists. What exactly were people supposed to do back then? And if they're testing the system they must still be in use for some future incident. What for exactly? I started thinking about the nuclear meltdown on the show 24. I guess they'd use it to tell people to evacuate or something. But for what other purpose? For the record the system is not very good. I really had to strain to make out what the announcer said. The sirens came through loud and clear though. It was really all kinda eerie.

1 comment:

Ben said...

I don't think I've ever heard one of those air-raid-siren things before. There are a lot of times where I don't have the TV/radio on, and though I'm online, I'm not constantly polling the news sites. Sometimes I wonder how I would know if I were in a predicament like 9/11 -- I guess you have to keep those air-raid siren systems running for just those reasons.