Some people living in Strasburg say they are used to it, while others say a siren keeps waking them up at night and disturbing their daily lives. A 'Fire Siren' meeting Thursday evening let residents share their thoughts with the local fire department.

"It just goes, whoooooop, whooooooopp," said one resident.

"It sounds, where I live, almost like a jet engine," said Ray Willis.

"It sounds like World War II going off," said Gioia-Pharo Gioia.

Whenever the Strasburg Fire Department receives an emergency call the siren goes off, no matter what day, no matter what time.

"The community knows that when that siren goes off, somebody is in need of help," said resident Joann McCoy.

Last year, the department received a total of 470 calls.

"Since it's a volunteer station, we're not guaranteed to have staffing there," said Strasburg Volunteer Fire Department president David Hupp.

David says the fire department can't do without it.

"I don't believe we can, he said. "If it draws just two to three firefighters for a call, that's crucial manpower."

"It was a great system 63 years ago, when it was installed ... State of the art," said Ray. "But, there are better, newer, and more efficient digital systems that can communicate with firemen than to use an outdated, archaic, siren system."

Right now, Strasburg firefighters have these pagers.

It will alert them for 10 seconds if they are needed for an emergency, but the firefighter must be near the pager to get the alert, whenever it may come through.

The siren runs for more than two minutes, and can be heard at a much greater distance.

"I applaud everything they do," said Ray. "They protect our property and our people, but, do we really need to be, the whole community, woke up in the middle of the night?"

The fire department will take the information gathered from Thursday meeting and try to come up with a solution.

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