Evening star., 1942-08-21
BY MIRIAM GUTENBERG.

WIN washington completing
arrangements to touch of all air.
raid sirens from single button,
three of five neighboring areas
have worked out systems whereby
they can sound their warnings
at the same time or within sec
onds of the District warning, a
survey indicated today.
A fourth area. Fairfax County, Va,
is almost starting from scratch"
and Montgomery County, Md, has
reached the planning stage for syn
chronizing the sirens that border
Washington. The three outlying
units of the Metropolitan Area which
have already put synchronized sys-
TENS in operation are Arlington and
Alexandria, Va, and Prince Georges
County, Md
The need for developing a central
lied warning system so that all COM
munities in the Washington Metro
politan Area would respond simul-
taneously to the alarm has been
demonstrated in previous blackout
tests when sirens in some nearby
areas sounded from to Is minutes
before or behind the District sirens.
Montgomery County Set-up.
At the present time Montgomery
County's AZ electric sirens are all
operated manually. Some firemen
and police touch of the warnings,
but for the most part the job is left
to wardens. In addition to the
sirens, 80 automobiles are equipped
with warning devices to take care of
sparsely settled districts.
Five report subcenters are re-
sponsible for notifying the siren
saunders to go to their posts. This
they do on the yellow" signal. The
wardens are called at the scene of
the siren on the blue" and again on
the "red" to give the warning
Sometimes, wardens have to run
three or four blocks to get to the
sirens. Also, sometimes, they hear
what they think are the District
sirens and sound the sirens without
waiting for the telephone direction.
To determine what steps were be-
ing taken to bring Montgomery into
line with the other counties as well
as the District itself, it was neces-
sary to talk with Chief of Commu-
nications j. B. Morrison: his assist
ant, Horace Hampton: Montgomery
Defense Director Albert E. Brault
and the county commissioners Of
flee.
Central Control Sought.
Judge Brault said he had been
trying since the sirens were in
stalled to get central control sys-
tenn at least for the sirens border
ing Washington. He said he had
never been able even to get an esti-
mate of the cost.
Mr.. Morrison said I'VE plan to 20
ahead with that" now that the cost
OF installing an automatic system
for 16 sirens had been approved by
the county commissioners, that all
the materials had been obtained
and that installations would be COM
pleted within two or three weeks"
The county commissioners office
said 1t had no record of a synchro-
nized system being approved.
Mr.. Morrison then said he had
submitted the cost Of the synchroni-
zatiolf to Judge Brault in April and
that the Executive Committee of
the Civilian Defense Council had
approved the budget. He promised
to find out where the confusion ex-
listed and had Mr.. Hampton look
into it.
Mr.. Hampton said at first he was
sure 1t had been approved after
Judge Brault had asked him to in
clude the cost OF synchronization
In the budget which was to be sub
mitted by the commissioners.
He asked for more time to look
into it and later said that when
the budget was presented to the
county commissioners they decided
to set up contingent fund ap-
proving each specific request as It
arose. SPECIFIC approval, he said,