To The Editor:

I am a resident in Tarrytown NY and have lived here since 2000.

The Tarrytown fire department utilizes an old air horn mounted on top of a pole at their fire house on Main Street that sounds a series of repeated bursts of approx. 25 blasts of the horn every time a 911 call comes in to the fire dept. These air horns were designed to be heard over long distances like the old civil defense air raid horns of the 1950’s.

I have been told that this is a code system similar to Morse code, used as a method of signaling the volunteers as to which part of town to respond to when an emergency call comes in. This system was developed and adopted many decades ago when communication technology at the time was limited to telephones. Similar volunteer departments such as Port Chester, Somers, Hyde Park, Beacon, New Rochelle and Peekskill have long since abandoned their air horns for modern communication devices such as cell phones, satellite pagers and Walkie-Talkies.

The Tarrytown Fire Department continues to employ this outdated method, which is now simply a noise nuisance to the entire village of Tarrytown. I live several blocks away and my windows rattle with every blast of this ugly horn

The Tarrytown Firefighters will argue that they need this as a double backup in the event that they are doing something that distracts them. The problem with their argument is that there are 200 or more volunteers (far more than most communities)in the department that may or may not even respond to a call so the horn is necessary to alert those that elect to respond at any given emergency. They need to establish a duty roster of assigned firefighters to assigned time slots.

This complaint speaks for many of the residents within earshot who also share my frustration. I would be half satisfied if time restrictions were set such as blowing the air horns up till 8PM and not before 8AM, like other state noise ordinances.

I have been told by residents, including several firefighters, that the use of the air horn is now simply a matter of tradition. It is time that the Tarrytown Fire Dept. switch over to modern equipment and restructure their duty roster.

Lou Peterson

Tarrytown, NY