by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
At long last, many neighbors in Watab Township south of Rice are happy that from now on they’ll be able to hear a storm-warning siren.
A work crew from Starry Electric, Foley, installed a siren Sept. 3 on a lot near Highway 10 just south of the Pine’s Edge mini-mall. Shortly after installation, they tested the siren, and sure enough – its piercing wail was loud and clear to neighborhoods near and far. (For more on the siren, see related story.)
Watab Township is a 212.4 square-mile area north of the mouth of Watab Creek just north of Sartell and covering an area east of the Mississippi and just south of Rice in Benton County. It includes many neighborhoods, including the Rockwood Estates mobile-home park and homes clustered near or at Little Rock Lake. The township’s population was 3,093 as of the 2010 U.S. Census.
“It’s about time,” said Martha Dubbin, a resident of Rockwood Estates shortly after she heard the storm-siren test Sept. 3. “My windows were all closed today because of the air-conditioning, but we could hear that siren loud and clear.”
Dubbin, who admits she is deathly afraid of summer storms, has lived at Rockwood Estates with her husband, Richard, for several decades. They have both experienced some nasty storms, some of which knocked down trees in their yard.
“Most of the time we couldn’t hear the tornado-warning siren from Rice, so now I’m glad to know if a bad storm is coming, this siren will give us warning so we can go right away to the shelter here in Rockwood. We live near the railroad tracks, and about 100 trains go through night and day. That – and the traffic on Hwy. 10 – are the main reasons we can’t hear the siren from Rice. And when the weather looks ugly, I keep wondering, is that a train going by or is it a tornado coming? They claim a tornado sounds just like a train. The siren will really be a big help. I’m so glad they put one there.”
One of the scariest storms, Dubbin said, happened Friday, Aug. 13, 2010 when afternoon skies suddenly turned viciously inky-black and roily, causing the Dubbins and others to hurry to the Rockwood underground shelter. When they emerged from the shelter, they saw a mess of knocked-down trees, large branches, twigs and leaves littering the mobile-home park. Even worse damage occurred in Rice and across the river along CR 1 where straight-line winds felled entire stands of trees. The rip-snorting storm caused plenty of property damage but, fortunately, no deaths or injuries.
That 2010 storm is what caused the Mayhew Township Board to seek help in getting another tornado siren, said Craig Gondeck, a Watab Township Board supervisor. There is a Watab Township siren at 10th Avenue NW south of 95th Avenue, but, as Gondeck noted, many residents cannot here it (or the one in Rice) because of train sounds and/or traffic noise.
Gondeck was present when the work crews installed the siren Sept. 3 and was interviewed by the Sauk Rapids-Rice Newsleader.
The siren, he said, was a long-deferred wish come true, and it happened thanks to a $32,000 grant from the Benton Telecommunications Foundation, which was founded in 2007 by the Benton Communications Telephone Co-Op in Rice.
Watab Township Clerk Pat Spence wrote a grant application for the siren, and the foundation announced just last June that the grant request had been accepted.
Gondeck and Spence, who was also at the Sept. 3 installation, said they are both “extremely grateful” for the foundation’s generous grant.
“That’s what made this siren possible,” said Gondeck, who is also the emergency-management director for the township. “That grant paid for all of this siren – 100 percent of it.”
