AR-News: (AK) Nome silences siren that greeted Iditarod mushers from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

[Glickman37 at aol.com]

Nome's wailing tradition silenced by siren complaints 
>From 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., mushers' approach to be noted only by KNOM

By JOEL GAY
Anchorage Daily News

March 20, 2004

NOME -- For 32 years, day or night, finishers in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog 
Race have been greeted with a blast from the community siren. 


But on Thursday night, the tradition died a little. By city decree, the siren 
will go silent from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. daily."We've been getting a lot of 
complaints," Mayor Denise Michels said. 

The old siren had a sound that some described as deep, like a foghorn. But it 
died before the 2003 race. 

The city used new Federal Security Administration funding to replace it with 
four new sirens.

Though only one has been hooked up, its higher-pitch, 30-second duration and 
wailing, World War II-era sound didn't go over well with Nome residents, city 
council member Mary Knodel said. By Thursday morning, she got about 15 
complaints, she said.

"Most people are asking if (the siren) has to go on all night long, and for 
every musher," Knodel said. "How many people show up" that late at night, she 
asked. "After the first 10 (finishers), hardly anybody comes out except the 
people in the bars. You're lucky to get a dozen."

The siren greeting is not the tradition it used to be, said Knodel, who has 
lived in Nome since before the first Iditarod. 

In the beginning, the community didn't have a public radio station. Now, she 
said, "Everybody listens to KNOM," and the station keeps a 24-hour watch at 
the edge of town for incoming teams. It broadcasts an alert for every finishing 
musher, she said.

And during the 1970s, "There weren't 80 teams," Knodel said. On the night 
Mitch Seavey finished, the siren sounded eight times between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. 
The next night, nine teams finished during those hours. Each one warranted a 
wail, and more than half the field had yet to finish.

"People who are working need to sleep," Knodel said.

Even before the siren was turned off Thursday night, a few in Nome were 
grumbling. 

But Nancy McGuire, publisher of the Nome Nugget, called the siren's song to 
finishing mushers "a fact of life" in the tradition-rich race. Her advice to 
opponents? "Deal with it."

Reporter Joel Gay can be reached at jgay at adn.com or 257-4310. 

http://www.adn.com/iditarod/news/story/4870185p-4805677c.html 








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