FALSE ALARM IN CITY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 227, 26 September 1942, Page 4

FALSE ALARM IN CITY

RAID SHELTERS RUSHED

FIRE SIREN MISTAKEN Acting under the impression that a dispersal warning had been given, many people hurried to raid shelters and slit trenches after hearing the fire siren at the intersection of Victoria Avenue and Guyton Street early yesterday afternoon. They had been tofil that a dispersal trial would be held in the Wanganui business area "some time during daylight hours” that day. but confused an ordinary brigade warning’ with an E.P.S. alarm After heavy, intermittent showers all morning, light rain was falling at 1.37 p.m. when Central Fire Station received a call to a dwelling on the Great North Road. St. John’s Hill. One machine was despatched and the siren at the Guyton S.reet-Victoria Avenue intersection was set in motion to warn traffic cf its approach. Expecting an E.P.S. practice alarm at any moment, many people in the street, and also in shops and offices, jumped to the conclusion that they must disperse to shelters. Others, who noticed that the siren was sounding a continuous blast, held their ground, realising that the emergency alarm consists of blasts of 10 seconds, at five-second intervals, for two minutes. The brigade call was merely to an incipient outbreak which caused no damage, but some minutes elapsed before many people became aware that they had acDd on the impulse of the moment. E.P.S. officials again emphasised yesterday that the public should not confuse the emergency alarm signal with other warnings. In trials and actual emergency the same alternate blasts would be’ used, the "all clear" being a continuous sounding of the alarm system for two minutes.

Some people who were making for shelters were stopped by E.P.S. officials and told that the dispersal warning had not been given. Others actually took up positions in shelters and trenches, in spite of the wet weather, till they realised their mistake.

It was also explained yesterday that under existing instructions from Wellington. the complete E.P.S. alarm system may not be used for local or sectional trials. The full system may only be operated when a large-scale trial involving all units is hold, or in an actual emergency. To overcome this difficulty, the E.P.S. authorities in Wanganui decided that for disnersal trials the siren at the intersection of Guyton Street and Victoria Avenue, and also the firebell at Cook's Gardens, would be used to give the warning. Confusion with the E.P.S. alarm signal has also occurred in other centres, and on one occasion the Police Court in Auckland was cleared when a fire-engine answered a call. In Wanganui, as elsewhere, fireengines now carrv electric doubletone horns instead of sirens.