CORVALLIS, Ore. – A forgotten Cold War-era defense siren set off by a prankster at Oregon State University to herald the new year is going to Astoria to serve as a tsunami alert, officials say.
Not tested since the 1980s, the siren atop Covell Hall went off at midnight on New Year’s Day, rotating and emitting varying pitches heard across town.
Now that the relic’s been brought to the university’s attention, it will soon be put to use again as part of a tsunami warning system in Astoria.
Oregon State Police Lt. Phil Zerzan, station commander at OSU, was on patrol when the alarm sounded. A history buff, he began to research the siren’s story.
“It’s kind of an interesting relic,” he said, noting that not many people with knowledge of the siren still work at Oregon State.
It was part of a system designed to warn Corvallis, Lebanon, Albany and Junction City of a coming nuclear attack. In addition to the siren, Covell Hall, which was constructed in the late 1920s, has a bomb shelter in the basement.
The siren is the only one of its kind on campus, and probably in the Corvallis area, Zerzan said
After the siren went off on New Year’s, OSU public safety officers and maintenance workers scrambled to figure out how to stop the noise. It finally turned itself off after about 10 minutes.
Officials cut power to the device. But the prankster struck again last week, triggering the siren in the morning, the Gazette-Times newspaper reported.
The first time, it was a clever prank that didn’t cause much damage, but “doing it a second time crossed into the annoying zone,” Zerzan said.
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