Northfield Evacuation Siren, Massachusetts

Until its closure in December of 2014, sirens such as this one were used in three Massachusetts communities near the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in southern Vermont. In the event of an accident at the plant, the siren would emit a steady three to five minute tone, after which residents were to tune to an Emergency Alert radio station and await further instructions. In a severe accident, instructions would include going indoors, closing the windows, and turning off ventilation systems. If instructed to evacuate, Massachusetts residents were directed to enter their car covering their mouths with a damp cloth, keep car windows closed, ventilation off, and drive to the nuclear accident reception center at the Community College in Greenfield. This particular siren was pointed at a boarding school in Northfield, and was tested the first Saturday of every month, at 12:15 PM. As the reactor's emergency zone is now limited to only the plant site itself, the affected towns in a three-state area, will have the choice of either returning the sirens to plant owner Entergy, or retaining them for their own emergency alerts. Current decommissioning plans for the Vermont Yankee reactor, entail placing the plant in protective storage for up to sixty years, at an estimated cost of $1.24 billion.