{"id":53209,"date":"2015-11-12T13:00:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T18:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=53209"},"modified":"2015-11-10T17:28:31","modified_gmt":"2015-11-10T22:28:31","slug":"cold-war-siren-system-toronto-never-used","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/11\/12\/cold-war-siren-system-toronto-never-used\/","title":{"rendered":"The cold war siren system Toronto never used"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Dundas West and Shaw, near Trinity-Bellwoods Park, there’s a conspicuous\u00a0piece of Canada’s Cold War\u00a0history.<\/p>\n

On top of a 15-metre pole sits a massive\u00a0electric air raid siren. Disconnected long ago, it’s one of just\u00a0a handful of relics left over from when Toronto and the rest of Canada was seriously concerned about being caught up in a nuclear war between the United States and the USSR.<\/p>\n

The idea of a peacetime, nationwide\u00a0air raid alert system started\u00a0in earnest in 1951, when the federal government under prime minister Louis St. Laurent commissioned\u00a0200 of electric, two-tone sirens from Scarborough company Canadian Line Materials, Ltd..<\/p>\n

Provincial secretary Arthur Welsh said\u00a0a\u00a0co-ordinated system of sirens within the larger Greater Toronto Area would help in the event of a nuclear attack.\u00a0“A bomb is not a respecter of municipal boundaries,” he said in 1951, adding that there was no plan to evacuate towns and cities in advance of an attack.<\/p>\n

“Many people think some welfare organization would evacuate them, where they would be fed and clothed. That is not the case. In the past two wars, when soldiers in the trenches were attacked by mortar, they stayed and fought it out. That’s what we will do.”<\/p>\n

The sirens would sound in the event of\u00a0an imminent nuclear bomb attack or if there was danger from drifting radioactive fallout, perhaps from an attack on Detroit, Buffalo, or another U.S. target\u00a0close to Toronto.<\/p>\n

In March, 1952, the first six Canadian cities\u2014Halifax, \u00a0St. John, Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Victoria\u2014received their warning sirens. Toronto received a\u00a0shipment as well, but refused to proceed with\u00a0installation\u00a0without money from\u00a0other levels of government.<\/p>\n

“Toronto just doesn’t\u00a0seem able to get interested in [civil defence,]” officials in Ottawa complained.<\/p>\n

By 1953,\u00a0sirens were emitting mournful test wails\u00a0in\u00a0smaller Ontario towns, like Hamilton. In Toronto, the $750 devices were gathering dust in a firehall on Howland Ave. because the local authorities still\u00a0refused to pay the cost of installation.<\/p>\n

Besides, the\u00a0city wasn’t sure the sirens\u00a0would even save lives. In the event of a nuclear or hydrogen bomb attack, much of Toronto would be reduced to ashes in seconds. There would be no time for citizens to hear a warning and take shelter.<\/p>\n

(That said, a news report in 1951\u00a0suggested\u00a0Toronto’s suburban sprawl\u00a0might protect against widespread loss of life in the event of a nuke hitting downtown. “Toronto is a city of home-owners. Its homes are scattered up and down hills and ravines over a wide area.”)<\/p>\n

Before the Diefenbaker government, responsibility for Toronto’s disaster response fell\u00a0to a cash-strapped organization\u00a0with just three full-time staff. The Toronto and York Civilian Defence Committee, which relied on roughly 3,500 trained\u00a0volunteers, had an\u00a0annual budget of\u00a0$16,000 in 1954\u2014roughly 8 percent of the amount allotted for\u00a0the same purpose in\u00a0Vancouver.<\/p>\n

A lack of equipment\u00a0was also a problem.<\/p>\n

“Without a control centre, a communications centre, or a warning system, the civilian defence officials, if an attack came today, would have at their disposal, in addition to telephones, some 700 to 800 taxis, equipped with two-way radio,” the Globe and Mail<\/em> reported. “These would be effective only if their control centres remained in operation.”<\/p>\n

“Starved for money and staff, Toronto’s civilian defence officials frankly admit they would be caught cold unless there was plenty of advance warning of an attack,” the story continued, ominously.<\/p>\n

Ottawa asked\u00a0Toronto to return its\u00a0unused sirens later in 1954, and that appeared to\u00a0spur the city into action. A\u00a0report\u00a0suggested the 30\u00a0units could be installed for just $20 each, but\u00a0still nothing was\u00a0done by 1956. Toronto complained\u00a0the electric sirens were too quiet, especially in the winter when people added storm protection to their homes, and susceptible to failure in the event of a power outage.<\/p>\n

\"toronto<\/a>
Advertisement for the Mobil-Directo brand sirens that were\u00a0installed across Toronto. Library and Archives Canada.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A new batch arrived courtesy of the federal government later that year, though they weren’t the American-made Thunderbolt model the City of Toronto wanted. The first 25 additional units arrived in Toronto in the Fall of 1956 and were installed along with those held in storage around the end of the year.<\/p>\n

The first pubic test took place on December 7, 1956, when a siren mounted on top of a building at Yonge and Richmond wailed to life. It was audible up to six miles away in some parts of the city,\u00a0but\u00a0almost impossible to hear on nearby Court St., proving the suspicions of civil defence officials.<\/p>\n

Tall downtown buildings threatened to deflect the important warning sound away from its intended target, and so many were installed on 15-metre\u00a0poles where rooftops were unavailable or too expensive to lease.<\/p>\n

Despite progress, Toronto’s system of air raid sirens was still incomplete in 1958 and remained untested into 1960. Under the jurisdiction of the army, the first full scale test was conducted in December of that year. According to the results,\u00a0up to a quarter of the city was unable to hear it, partly due to several electrical malfunctions.<\/p>\n

The air raid system was controlled through the telephone network using\u00a0special system developed by Bell. Called the Bell and Lights System, it consisted of a central control unit based on a modified handset.<\/p>\n

“The dial is like any ordinary telephone dial, but it has a colour code in place of letters and numbers,” The Globe and Mail<\/em> reported in 1952. “Dialling of yellow transmits a confidential alert or warning that an attack may take place; red indicates an attack is imminent, white is all clear.”<\/p>\n

Sirens were controlled through the addition of a second circuit connected to the dial and every phone book in Toronto carried an explanation of what to do when the siren sounded.<\/p>\n

Though innovative at the time, the Bell system soon began to show its age. In 1967, a fault at\u00a0a downtown telephone exchange triggered dozens of\u00a0sirens across the city for\u00a0about 10 minutes. The police were flooded with calls, though no-one was scared, according to reports.<\/p>\n

“The only thing that panics people here is when the Leafs lose 10 straight,” a police official said.<\/p>\n

As the threat of nuclear war diminished through the 70s and 80s, the Ontario siren system began to fall into disrepair. Lightning strikes and damage by vandals with\u00a0rifles triggered periodical false alarms. In 1979, a badly timed activation of 50 sirens between Port Credit and Oshawa\u00a0caused nervous moments for several local residents.<\/p>\n

“Some called police and local media to ask whether the alarm was a warning that SkyLab was about to fall on Toronto, ” the Globe and Mail<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

By 1980, there were 1,704 sirens dotted across the country, according to the Toronto Star<\/em>. “Most of the sirens have gone the way of the wind, or torn down with utility poles when lines and poles were replaced.” The downtown siren at Yonge and Richmond was still standing at the time, though it now seems to be gone.<\/p>\n

The number of planned tests declined and were halted altogether in 1985 due to the changing “public sensibility,” according to emergency planning officials. A $4 million replacement that could have\u00a0warned of imminent natural and man-made disasters was\u00a0considered in 1986, but was never purchased.<\/p>\n

From about 78 sirens in Toronto 1980, there are now just a handful dotted around the city, collecting rust. There’s one on the roof of the Harbourfront Centre<\/a>\u00a0and another on\u00a0a former police station on Main St.<\/a>\u00a0The Victoria Building at Ryerson<\/a>\u00a0has a yellow siren\u00a0at its northeast corner and a pole next to the tennis courts<\/a> at\u00a0Bayview Village Park on Bayview Ave. also houses a defunct siren.<\/p>\n

Mercifully, none have ever been\u00a0needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Dundas West and Shaw, near Trinity-Bellwoods Park, there’s a conspicuous\u00a0piece of Canada’s Cold War\u00a0history. On top of a 15-metre pole sits a massive\u00a0electric air raid siren. Disconnected long ago, it’s one of just\u00a0a handful of relics left over from when Toronto and the rest of Canada was seriously concerned about being caught up inContinue reading “The cold war siren system Toronto never used”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8234,"featured_media":53442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69,24,50,18,14,32],"tags":[22125,22131,22130,22124,22129,22126,22128,19,22127],"class_list":["post-53209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curiosities","category-history","category-infrastructure","category-neighbourhoods","category-spacing","category-streetscape","tag-air-raid","tag-atomic","tag-bomb","tag-cold-war","tag-nuclear","tag-siren","tag-system","tag-toronto","tag-warning"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe cold war siren system Toronto never used - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/11\/12\/cold-war-siren-system-toronto-never-used\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The cold war siren system Toronto never used - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At Dundas West and Shaw, near Trinity-Bellwoods Park, there’s a conspicuous\u00a0piece of Canada’s Cold War\u00a0history. 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