Residents in Lewisville will go into severe storm season armed with two new warning tools this year.
On Tuesday, crews installed new outdoor warning sirens in the parking lot of Lewisville High School and at the intersection of Hebron Parkway and South Railroad Street.
The new systems are state-of-the-art Vortex R-4 warning sirens that store solar energy overtime so that they are ready to operate in emergency situations.
The sirens were mounted 50 feet in the air by specialized crews so that the sound put out can travel over vegetation and into nearby neighborhoods without obstruction.
City Emergency Management Coordinator Josh Roberts said the sirens came out of the city budget at a cost of about $60,000 for the set of two, and he hopes each should last the city 20 to 30 years with regular maintenance.
Roberts said the locations for the sirens were chosen based on the large populations that have moved into those two areas creating a need for more emergency coverage.
Though Roberts stressed that the warning sirens should by no means be the only warning alert citizens are relying on.
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"There's no single, one warning tool," he said. "We always advocate people have multiple ways to receive emergency warnings during dangerous weather."
After an already active severe weather year in the area, Lewisville has launched an aggressive severe weather education campaign.
They're asking residents to make sure they're covered with plenty of indoor warnings as well including their Citizen Alert notification system, smartphone apps like the NBCDFW App that send warnings directly to your screen, and NOAA weather radios to provide the latest, immediate information in a storm.
