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City siren silenced for calling firefighters to duty

A siren no longer will sound in the Omaha suburb of Bennington to call firefighters to duty.

The Omaha World-Herald reports that the city siren now will sound only for weather or civil defense warnings.

Fire Chief Ben Tysor says Bennington started using the siren in 1970 to alert its fire volunteers. Now the department has pagers, smartphone alerts and radios to reach fire crews and medics.

He says that as the city of 1,600 has grown, it gets more visitors for sporting and other events, and they didn't know whether the siren meant a tornado was near or some other danger had arisen.

Mayor Matt John says the siren went off so much that he thinks some people had become desensitized — not a good development in tornado country.

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