Phillips Petroleum installs new siren system at Nikiski plant

by The Associated Press

Phillips Petroleum Co. has installed a $140,000 siren system to improve safety for workers at the liquefied natural gas plant in Nikiski.

The new system to alert workers of emergencies inside the plant has two separate tones; a wail like a police siren for general alarms and a high-low tone for plant evacuation, said Jed Watkins, plant engineer.

The old system had just one tone and therefore could not distinguish different types of emergencies, Watkins said. There also were some areas of the plant where the old system, a half-dozen speakers around the plant, could not be heard.

The new system has 16 speakers, plus a powerful civil defense-style speaker array on a pole. Phillips also has installed strobe lights in high-noise areas to alert workers to move elsewhere to listen for emergency instructions. The new system includes prerecorded messages that tell workers to report to general alarm stations or to evacuate.

If Phillips ever needs to notify the public of an emergency, it will make announcements over radio station KSRM and use the Community Alert Network, an automated telephone dialing system.