The city air raid siren will sound twice Tuesday morning to mark the falling of the twin towers at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n
Mayor Wally Scott\u2019s office announced last week that the siren atop City Hall had been in disrepair and was not working until recently.<\/p>\n
Scott felt that sounding it at the time the two towers fell \u2013 at 9:59 and 10:28 a.m. \u2013 would add to the city\u2019s tribute, which includes a ceremony by the fire department in City Park.<\/p>\n
The siren will sound despite objections from members of City Council who said they had heard from constituents opposed to a siren being sounded on what has been a somber recognition of the terror attacks.<\/p>\n
At Monday night\u2019s council meeting, Scott said that he grew up hearing the siren. He said that the city sounded the siren a couple of times last week and only two people called City Hall to find out what it meant.<\/p>\n
Scott said he thought the siren would alert people to the events of the day, including the memorial service in City Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe at those times they could take a moment of peace for themselves to remember that day,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was not intended to hurt anyone. I only suggested that for awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scott noted that at the earlier committee meeting before the council session that Councilman John Slifko had said a more appropriate commemoration might be to have all the church bells in the city toll at the times the towers fell.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe we can do that next year,\u201d Scott said. \u201cThe bells might offer spiritual value.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Marcia Goodman-Hinnershitz, who has led the objections to the siren, maintained her opposition to the siren at the committee meeting.<\/p>\n
She told the mayor that she felt herself getting anxious just thinking about the sirens going off on 9\/11. A social worker, Goodman-Hinnershitz said that people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder might be disturbed by a siren.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those who have issues with loud noises and emergency sirens, this could stir things up,\u201d she said. \u201cFor me, having an air raid siren going off is not a good way of marking 9\/11.\u201d<\/p>\n
Managing Director W. Glenn Steckman III said that he researched the issue of 9\/11 ceremonies and found that some communities have every firetruck and police car on the street sound their sirens at the times the towers fell, the plane hit the Pentagon and Flight 93 crashed in Somerset County.<\/p>\n
Goodman-Hinnershitz agreed with Scott that the city should contact churches to see if they would be willing to sound their bells next year.<\/p>\n
Slifko said he understood Scott\u2019s intention but agreed with Goodman-Hinnershitz that a siren might not be the appropriate method.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s certainly worthy to commemorate 9\/11 every year,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, I agree it is traumatic to hear a siren and that it should be used for a true emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Lucine Sihelnik said that she got a call from a constituent and she advised that caller to contact the mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Donna Reed questioned whether sounding an air raid siren for a memorial observance might be illegal.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy only question is the legality of it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Reed asked city Solicitor Jan \u201cJ.D.\u201d Krafzcek for an opinion and he said that he would have to research the matter and get back to council.<\/p>\n
Steckman said the administration could try to organize church bells for next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no time for it now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city air raid siren will sound twice Tuesday morning to mark the falling of the twin towers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-315443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-news","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}