During Monday night's Indianola Board of Aldermen meeting, Alderman Sam Brock raised concern over a recent newspaper article concerning the city's emergency sirens.
Brock said his reason for addressing the matter with Fire Chief Orlando Battle was so that city department heads would be cognizant of statements made to the press.
Brock said, “You’ll never realize how many people do not come to board meetings who read these issues and say that the department head and the board do not cooperate together.”
Referencing an article in the June 27 edition of the Enterprise-Tocsin, Brock told Battle, “You have to be careful what you write in The Enterprise-Tocsin. You have to be careful what you say. But, you made a statement about the problem with the sirens.” And Battle affirmed that he did.
Alluding to the article, Brock noted how Battle made a statement about the sirens being at Fire Station 2 and there being no backup power for the sirens during storms. “That's a misquote,” said Battle. (Note: the article actually stated: “The fire chief said the signal operates on electricity and in the event of a power failure, their only recourse is a generator).
“Bring it on, because I'm going to see if the paper is going to make you out a story or you going to make it out of one,” said Brock.
Battle told him that a conversation with this reporter that stemmed from a question from publisher/editor Bryan Davis, sparked a question about why no sirens were sounded during the recent severe weather.
“We never sound the siren without the permission of Emergency Management,” Battle said.
Battle said that he was on the phone with Emergency Management Director Denny Evans during the time of the storm, and before they even thought about sounding a siren, the storm had passed, because it was traveling in excess of 60 miles per hour.
He also added that the storm was located north of the city and never produced a tornado, only straight-line winds.
Battle mentioned recent meetings between he and the other officials in conjunction with National Weather Service that produced a plan.
He has also had a conversation with Mayor Steve Rosenthal, Evans and others about re-establishing an emergency alert system such as Code Red.
In his discourse, Battle further asserted that in the event of a siren related incident, if a person was inside, they would have to be within a point-five mile radius of the siren in order to even hear it.
Brock said, “In other words, when the lights go out you all have no backup system?”
Battle denied that assertion and said they did.
He said they have a backup battery on the system and they have a generator that is operational.
“We still have to go outside and plug up a generator,” he said.
Brock also questioned a written statement about Battle having raised his concerns to the previous fire administration and current city officials and the concerns going unheard.
Battle said that was not his comment. Brock asked that he retract it and state what he meant. Battle said that was not his statement.
At that point, Alderman Ruben Woods bellowed, “Recardo (Thomas) is always miss writing stuff. He did it about me.”
Battle emphasized that what he said was that the city had an opportunity to buy a natural gas generator several years ago and did not. Battle also stated that he had never presented the issue to the current city board.
So, Brock asked if the newspaper made a mistake and Battle said that it had.
