N.Y. Dept. Retires Station's Thunderbolt Siren

Over the years, when out of towners visited Caledonia and the fire whistle blew, they sometimes looked up to the sky and ran for cover, expecting the worst.

That's because the Caledonia fire siren, a 1962 1003 air raid siren, Thunderbolt, was actually a civil defense siren. Last February, CFD retired the 50 year old siren and installed a new electronic one.

Thunderbolt was loud and sometimes heard as much as 10 miles away. The siren was a local favorite, iconic, and had earned somewhat of a cult following. Audio clips of the siren are on the Caledonia Fire Department website, the community website, cal-mum.com and it's on many people's Facebook pages. The siren defined you as a native Caledonian, say many locals. You could tell if a stranger was in town by their reaction to the fire whistle going off at noon.

A strong wind storm last February brought tree limbs down and took out power to the village building and fire hall. National Grid came to restore power to the fire siren but said that it was too old, too outdated to fix.

Jim Dutton, chairman of the Caledonia Fire Commissioners, said the last few times that it needed replacement parts they had to get them from a museum because new parts for it had not been made in years.

Reluctantly, the commissioners knew they had to retire the siren and install a new one.

Caledonia Fire Department was without a siren from last February until December when the new siren was put in service. The Whelen 4-cell electronic siren is powered by two batteries and Livingston County E-911 activates it when an emergency occurs. Installed it cost the fire district about $12,000.

"It has four different tones. The one we have is the closest we could get to the old Thunderbolt," Dutton said.

Close maybe, but the new siren is not as loud as the old one. It covers the village, Dutton said, which is all that is necessary.

Fifty years ago when Thunderbolt was installed, it was the primary system of alerting the volunteer firefighters that there was a fire. Today, firefighters carry pagers, which alert them of the fire moments before the fire whistle even sounds.

"The purpose of the fire siren these days is to notify residents in the area that there is a fire call. It alerts them that firefighters will be responding to the fire hall and that trucks will be responding out of the fire hall to the scene," Dutton explained.

Thunderbolt may no longer be sounding the alarm in Caledonia but Dutton says every part of it is in safekeeping and at some point will be permanently restored.

"We feel it's an important part of Caledonia history. It's not going to the garbage pile," Dutton said.

Hopefully the restoration will be complete by July 2013 when Caledonia Fire Department hosts the Western New York Volunteer Firemen's Association convention at J.W. Jones Hall. The convention draws hundreds of firefighters from across the region. Caledonia firefighter Anthony DeMarco is president of WNYVFA. It is the first time the convention has been held in Caledonia since 1963.

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