The City of Cherryvale’s new tornado sirens were installed and tested this week with the first round of tests confirming wide audibility throughout the community.

“They’re loud,” said city administrator Trey Cocking. “It sounds good. It should be a vast improvement.”

Two new sirens were installed this week with one siren located at the Cherryvale Middle-High School campus and the other located at McKinley School. Combined with the siren located atop Cherryvale City Hall, the complete package of three sirens now provides a wider range of storm signal compared to the lone siren that provided muffled audibility problems for years.

The Cherryvale Fire-Rescue Department will continue to test the storm sirens at noon each weekday next week (Aug. 31-Sept. 4). Cocking said the sirens will be tested so that emergency personnel can become acclimated with the use of radio controls that can be used to sound the siren. The current siren atop City Hall was sounded only with the press of a button inside the fire-rescue department.

“We’ll still have capability inside the fire station to sound the sirens, but the siren system can also be sounded by radio controls, which should lead to a faster response, thereby saving lives and property,” he said.

The additional sirens were purchased and installed at a cost of about $38,000 with money budgeted in the City of Cherryvale’s five-year capital improvement program.