You can still see an old one on Harrisburg Blvd at the Haz Mat Station near 80th st and Harrisburg, its on the left side of the building. She had once said in addition to the Fire Stations having the horns most of the Bell central offices had them on the roof tops as well. the last time i recall hearing it here in Houston. My mother who worked for SW Bell for over 30 years was working at the Wesalyn Building in the early 90's and I know that of at least 1992 when I turned 16 started driving, I drove there to meet her for lunch that summer and at noon on a friday, the air raid siren was still going off then, that was prob. But have not ever heard Pasadena testing them since i been back. I also have seen the City of Pasadena has erected the newer sirens that at long black tubular horns around town, we had those at ends of streets in Dallas. I just moved back here from Dallas, where i got hear them every week this spring when all the tornados where coming through. I grew up the first 6 yrs of my life near that one, i was in the area a few weeks ago visiting my grandmother and noticed it still there. ![]() I would wake up on Fridays and I could hardly wait until noon to hear it.I don't know if the siren was moved to the top of The County Courthouse bulding or not. Then it would rotate away and you would wait until you could hear it again. When it went off you could hear it vaguely until it rotated to face your direction and then it was quite loud, even in the museum district. One could hear the siren for miles and miles. We used to get on a tiny private elevator that went from the lobby to the county judge's office on the top floor. He was officing there until the new courthouse was complete. My mother worked for the county judge at the time (Bill Elliott) and the siren was on the roof directly abover her office. The new Harris County Courthouse was still being built. I know that in the late 60's -early 70's it was on top of the Family Law Center. I believe the Air Raid Siren downtown was still being used until at least the late 80's. ![]() Fortunately the tornado hit just outside of town and did very minimal damage to buildings and property but the hail storm did a pretty serious job of banging up every car on our campus. I'll never forget being evacuated to the communication arts building basement during that storm, dodging the hail and flying debris in the wind and hearing the sirens wail. In one case about half the campus was outside for an outdoor music festival when a very severe storm hit and we were being bombarded by chunks of hail that were up to six or seven inches in diameter. ![]() In four years of living there, I only remember it going off for a tornado warning twice, but it was always a very frightening feeling to hear that siren go off when the weather outside was absolutely horrible. The system there had originally been installed as an air raid warning system but since the closure of a local air force base in the early 1970s, was used as a tornado warning system. It was tested once a week during around lunchtime if the weather was clear, and was so loud that it rattled just about everything in the apartment. Two summers while I was in college I lived in the college's apartment complex, which had one of that city's civil defense sirens in the parking lot.
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