2024 Georgia SWA Tornado Drill | Peach County, GA | distant siren ambiance

(Preface: I apologize for the noisy water fountain that's heard in the background of this recording. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time beforehand to turn it off so this is just what I had to work with.)

For the annual statewide tornado drill this year, I decided to try something a little bit different than normal by leaving a recording device on my front porch just to see if I could capture anything worthwhile coming from the adjacent counties (mainly Peach County) who were activating their siren systems for the drill. For some reason, our county (Houston) normally does not participate in these drills by activating their own siren system, as was the case this year. Luckily, that presented me with a great opportunity to record a distant ambiance of those other counties' sirens activating, provided the weather conditions are right for it. And boy, did that little gamble ever pay out with an awesome ambiance heard loud and clear!

What you're hearing in this recording are a handful Peach County's outdoor warning sirens along the eastern side of the county (adjacent to Houston County), activating in a 30-second alert tone for the practice drill. This drill is held at 9am EST on the Wednesday during Georgia's annual Severe Weather Preparedness Week that typically occurs the second week in February. Peach County's siren network consists primarily of Whelen Engineering Vortex R4 sirens, plus a handful of brand new Federal Signal 508-128 sirens and two older sirens within the City of Fort Valley (a FS 2001-SRN near the FVSU campus, and a STH-10 on the water tower in downtown).

The most prominent siren heard starting up first toward the beginning of the video is one of those aforementioned new Federal Signal 508-128 sirens that were installed late last year, with this one being located along Russell Parkway near the Buc-ee's that's next to I-75 - approximately 6.2 miles from my location. Additionally, you can clearly hear one of their Whelen Vortex R4 sirens starting up shortly after the FS 508 winds up, which is located near the south end of Housers Mill Road - approximately 6.5 miles from my location.

Two other sirens can also be heard in the mix (albeit faintly) starting up in sequence following those first two: a second FS 508 located at Peach Co. Fire Station #5 on SR-96 outside of Fort Valley - approximately 8.5 miles away; and another Whelen Vortex R4 located at the intersection of Buckeye Road & Holland Road, near the Perry-Houston County airport - approximately 8.5 miles away. You may need to turn your volume up a little more toward the latter half of the video to hear these two sirens, as they are very faint in the mix but still slightly audible.

If you made it this far, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read the description, and thanks for watching!

2024 Georgia SWA Tornado Drill | Peach County, GA | distant siren ambiance | February 7, 2024