DALLAS -- A family in Preston Hollow is pleading with the City of Dallas to relocate a newly installed outdoor warning siren that hovers over their front yard.
Dallas has the largest network of warning sirens in America, according to its Office of Emergency Management. Right now, there are 159 sirens throughout the city. In 2016, a study found that there were coverage gaps in some areas and recommended that 20 sirens be installed as soon as possible.
Council members approved the purchase of six recently, and three have since been installed.
According to the City, it costs about $30,000 for the purchase and installation of each siren.
One of those sirens was installed at Dallas Fire-Rescue Station 2 this week. That station is in the 4000 block of Northaven Road in North Dallas, impacting about 300 households.
While the siren is on city property, it towers over the front yard of Angela and Jorge Gonzalez.
The Gonzalez family has lived in their home, which is estimated online to be over half-a-million dollars, for a few years.
The couple has spent roughly $90,000 renovating and remodeling it.
So, having a 40-foot siren spring up next to their front lawn was unsettling, Angela said.
“It is the centerpiece of our front yard,” she said. “Every time I pull up, I look at it and I just can’t believe that they put it there and thought that it would be OK.”
The Gonzalez family wasn’t notified or consulted about the siren because it was placed on city property.
In fact, Office of Emergency Management Director Rocky Vaz said that the city has never notified owners about installing a new siren.
“That’s a gap in our process that we’ve identified,” Vaz said.
But proposed locations are vetted by council members, and those meetings are open to the public.
The locations are also selected based on the height of adjacent buildings, a nearby power source, if city property is in the area, and if any utility lines are beneath the proposed siren location.
Sirens across the city are tested once a month, so concerns have grown between Angela and Jorge about their property value decreasing. And after spending nearly $100,000 to spruce up their home, they feel like they should have been given some sort of warning by the city.
“I can’t imagine someone trying to buy this house and not having an issue with this siren right in the front yard,” Jorge said.
Yet, worries don’t stop there. They have a daughter and her bedroom is on the second floor of the home—right next to their new noisy neighbor.
The decibel level of the siren ranges between 90db to 130db.
“The noise ranges from a tractor to a jet engine,” Vaz said.
“I’ve been close to a jet engine before and you can’t even speak,” Jorge said.
All the Gonzalez family wants is a compromise. They're asking the City to relocate the siren to another part of the station’s property so it isn’t directly above their house.
The good news? Vaz said that a consultant has already been contacted about relocation, but isn’t making any guarantees it will happen just yet.
“We’ll work with them to make sure we are all comfortable, but at the same time our primary concern is public safety,” Vaz said.
If relocation doesn’t happen, the Gonzalez family says it would consider taking the City to court.
“We don’t want to see that happen, but it’s a possibility,” Jorge said.
Vaz added that this was the first time a resident or neighborhood had an issue with the placement of a warning siren within the city.
He added that it will now be protocol to notify an area about the placement of a siren and get feedback before it’s installed.