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BY MICHAEL OLOHAN
OF PASCACK PRESS
WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J — The sounds of silence may be returning to Woodcliff Lake.
Responding to residents’ complaints about ear-popping decibel levels, the Borough Council agreed to work with fire department officials to quiet the borough’s lone remaining emergency fire siren to allow for about seven hours of quiet every night.
At the Oct. 15 council meeting, Councilwoman Jacqueline Gadaleta read a letter from Fire Chief Dan Schuster opposing the removal of the borough’s lone fire siren.
However, Schuster said he was “100 percent on board with exploring options” limiting hours of usage. Schuster said previously there were four sirens but only one remains in service.
Schuster said alerting local volunteer firefighters to an alarm is the siren’s number one priority. He said the siren also serves a civil defense purpose, alerts residents to an emergency and that volunteer firefighters will be responding.
He said the fire department is part of Pascack Valley Regional Aid and Tri-Boro Regional Aid, which involves mutual aid among nine Pascack Valley towns. He said every town has a siren to alert volunteer firefighters. He suggested repairing the other sirens, not eliminating a siren.
Gadaleta said the chief suggested possibly limiting duration of the siren alarm, from its regular two minutes to a shorter period. Borough Administrator Thomas Padilla said the chief also suggested having a timer put on the siren so it would not accidentally be set off during restricted hours.
“I think we can come to a good compromise that will satisfy everyone,” Gadaleta said.
Previous council comments
The council agreed Oct. 1 to eschew the ear-piercing alert between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., although it held off implementing restrictions on hours of operation pending input from fire department members.
Padilla said a contractor hired to repair batting cages at the baseball fields knocked down the borough’s remaining emergency siren by accident, and agreed to repair the siren. The siren is now operational again.
Meanwhile, the temporary silencing caused Padilla to revisit whether the siren should still be operational given residents’ complaints over the years about lost sleep, ear-piercing wake-ups, and negative effects of the loud siren on youth baseball players using nearby fields.
“It is very, very loud and that’s really a big concern of ours. The decibel level is extremely high,” said Padilla.
Padilla said most fire sirens originated as civil defense warning systems—alerts for a possible atomic bomb attack—in the 1940s and said many eventually were converted to warning signals by fire departments.
“We’ve gotten complaints in the past about it,” said Padilla, noting he would consult with the local fire department on keeping the siren in service.
Padilla said Oct. 1 he would “try to balance” the needs of first-responders and residents.
Mayor Carlos Rendo suggested eliminating the siren, noting it’s “a quality of life issue…and most municipalities are moving away from that [sirens].”
Padilla noted there is no law or mandatory requirement for a town to have a fire siren. He said volunteer firefighters are notified mostly by cell phone, e-dispatch and pagers, which the fire chief acknowledged in his letter.
Gadaleta said the council needed to hear from firefighters “before we make any rash decisions. There could be a benefit we’re not thinking about,” she noted.
She said a fire siren going off alerts her to the fact that “something is going on in town.”
At one point, Padilla said the fire siren should be kept as a backup alert in case other emergency communications are down.
“And there are other folks who feel strongly that this should continue,” he added.
Padilla suggested Oct. 1 that the public may have some ideas about the siren’s future use in town.
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