Whitefish working out 'bugs' of new siren

The 10 o’clock nighttime siren is back for all to hear in Whitefish, but the last thing residents expected Tuesday night was a blast that lasted for an entire minute.

It’s been quiet in Whitefish while the new City Hall was under construction. Now that it’s open, the curfew siren — a time-honored tradition for 98 years — is once again an evening ritual.

But it’s not supposed to blare for an entire minute, and the city is working on a fix.

“You may be wondering why the siren is going off so much or why it lasted way too long last night,” Whitefish City Manager Adam Hammatt said in an advisory late Wednesday. “We are trying to work the bugs out of the new system. The new system, evidenced by last night’s long blast, didn’t want to let us set the timing for less than 1 minute.”

Hammatt said electrician Mark Heider “is working up a fix to set the blast length to about what it was in the past.

“Please bear with us,” Hammatt added.

The siren has had a bumpy run the past few years. In 2009 it was silenced by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, when it was declared the familiar wail of the siren was too loud for the newly hired crew of city firefighters who stayed at the fire station when the city converted to round-the-clock fire and ambulance service.

In 2010 the siren was back in action atop the old City Hall after the Fire Department moved into new quarters in the Emergency Services Center in Baker Commons.

Through the years, the siren perhaps has been the only mechanism with the power to stop the City Council from talking, if only for a minute or so.

Love it or hate it, the curfew siren has a long history in Whitefish, dating back to 1919 when it originally rang at 9 p.m.

The 10 o’clock siren was instituted with a new ordinance in October 1944. In bygone years the daily wail beckoned youngsters home, telling them it was time to be off the city streets.

But even before the curfew siren, Whitefish had a fire whistle to alert volunteers, according to Whitefish historians who have noted early documentation that indicates officials tested the city’s first siren at 2 a.m. to see how far the sound could carry.