By Nathan Hardin
nhardin@salisburypost.com
ENOCHVILLE — After at least eight years, the Enochville fire station’s siren will be cranking out loud, obnoxious wails again.
And that’s the point.
“We didn’t put it back in service to be annoying or anything like that,” Fire Chief Clark Mackey said Friday. “We did it to get the word out that, ‘Hey, there’s going to be bad weather.’ ”
Mackey, who has been chief since April, said he wanted to make sure the community was aware when severe weather was being forecast.
“It seems like the last couple of years we’ve had some odd weather and it bothered me to know that some people might not be getting that information about the weather until it’s too late,” Mackey said.
The siren stopped working about eight or nine years ago, Mackey said. After being hired, he worked with the board that oversees the department to raise funds for a new base radio.
Mackey said the department chose a radio that could integrate the tornado sirens into the existing fire alarm.
“It was placed back in service to inform residents of the community and to warn them of severe weather,” he said.
Mackey said the alarm can be heard in Landis, Atwell and parts of Kannapolis.