McHenry Township Fire Protection District now covered with tornado sirens

For decades, the only tornado sirens in the McHenry Township Fire Protection District outside the city of McHenry were at Station 2 in Johnsburg and Station 3 in Lakemoor.

Those were not even real tornado sirens, but the old alert sirens that used to call volunteers to the stations, Fire Chief Rudy Horist said.

“They were estimated to be 50 years old and they had long since stopped being used to alert us, once we had pagers and cellphones” and became a professional department.

As of this summer, an estimated 90% to 95% of the district is covered by tornado sirens. Since 2015, the district has been partnering with towns, township offices and other entities inside the 56-square-mile district to pay for and install 11 new tornado warning sirens.

Including the city of McHenry’s sirens, there are 21 outdoor sirens to alert residents if a funnel cloud is sighted or if the National Weather Service puts out a tornado warning.

It was bad weather in 2015 that kicked off the effort, Horist said. “We had a storm come through, and the volunteer siren at Station 3 was damaged by the weather. It gave rise to the whole discussion here for the need for tornado sirens.”

“We did a lot of careful planning to get the most coverage.”

—  Rudy Horist, McHenry Township Fire Protection District fire chief

The board of trustees also got on board with the effort. “We wanted to be the focal point and ... to take the lead to get coverage throughout the fire district,” Horist said.

First, the two stations sirens were upgraded to true tornado sirens and patched in to the Northeast Regional Communications Center at the McHenry Police Department. Dispatchers there can press one button to sound the alarm in all of the fire district’s nine communities and its unincorporated portions of McHenry County.

Then, they began working with the township offices and village halls in their coverage area to share costs and find siren locations to cover the widest areas.

It isn’t just village or township halls that have new tornado sirens either.

The last siren installed is at Boone Creek Golf Club on Mason Hill Road, said Karen Bush, deputy chief of operations. Sirens also were installed at Moraine Hills State Park and Pistakee Country Club.

Those locations make sense as tornado sirens are to alert people who are outside that bad weather is on its way, Bush said. “We are looking at the area for the best location, the best coverage and where it needs to be.”

Determining the best location for a siren means understanding the area’s topography and tree coverage. “It is quite an education” when determining the best siren locations, Horist said. “There are so many variables to consider so there is not a hodgepodge of sticking holes in the ground. We did a lot of careful planning to get the most coverage.”

Another part of the planning is figuring out how to get power to the sirens, which cost $30,000 each. Of the 11 that have been installed, six do not have access to the power grid and instead are solar powered, Horist said.

Getting tornado sirens installed throughout the district is only one of the efforts Horist has spearheaded since becoming chief in January 2021. During his tenure, the district has changed its staffing so now 50% of its firefighters work full-time for the agency.

He has also taken on a role educating firefighters about the risks of cancer in the profession.

Horist is set to receive the Illinois Fire Chief of the Year award at the Illinois Fire Chiefs Association on Oct. 18 in East Peoria.

“I was very honored and humbled” to receive the award, Horist said.