Three-year plaque project for historic air siren comes to fruition with official unveiling

By Jeremy Appel on September 26, 2018.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel

The Hat’s Heritage Resource Committee unveiled a plaque Tuesday commemorating a civil defence siren built in 1962 as a response to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Mayor Ted Clugston, councillors Darren Hirsch, Kris Samraj and Jamie McIntosh, as well as two representatives from CFB Suffield — Capt. Ryan Murphy and Sgt. Steve Simpson — were in attendance.

The siren is posted on a 15-metre pole on Division Avenue between Third and Fourth streets SE — a location chosen for its acoustic coverage of the hill area.

The siren emitted a 130-decibel wail based on the sound made by Britain’s air raid sirens in the Second World War.

“The siren is unique in that it has two different rotor blades, which gives two pitches of sound simultaneously,” said Earl Morris, the committee’s vice chair.

“This creates the sound that was identical to those heard in London during the Blitz. It can make people’s back sides shiver having heard it in real life.”

There were five of these sirens installed throughout the Hat, but this is the only one that remains standing.

Another siren, which had been stationed near the airport, is displayed at the Esplanade foyer until January 2019.

As nuclear tensions decreased in the ’70s, the sirens were unplugged.

Morris says he’s been working on this plaque project for three years.

Council designated the siren a municipal historic resource on June 5, 2017.

Clugston, 50, said the siren takes him back to his days as a youth in Medicine Hat.

“I grew up on the south-west hill here. I remember this from my childhood. We walked by it. It was just a staple on the side of the hill here.

“It’s almost been here so long that you forget it was here and it became part of the background.”

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