South County’s Siren Song Fails to Live Up to the Fears

The surfers continued to surf, the jet skiers continued to jet ski and none of the customers in the Village Book Exchange in San Clemente’s Old Town even raised their heads.

About the only upset that seemed to occur when the warning sirens for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station were tested Wednesday was to the flock of sea gulls sitting on the beach. They skyrocketed into the air when the first blast was sounded at 10 a.m. But by the time the second test blast came an hour later, even the birds couldn’t be bothered, and they stayed put.

Testing of the 49 sirens is an annual event, one the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires to make sure the 170,000 people living and working within a 10-mile radius of the plant can be warned in case of a radiation leak. Then they can listen to radio and TV for instructions, ranging from staying indoors to getting out of town. Quickly.

But since the terrorism of Sept. 11, the bombing of Afghanistan and the anthrax attacks, some officials thought people hearing the siren test in San Juan Capistrano, Dana Point, San Clemente, unincorporated south Orange County and around the Camp Pendleton Marine base might mistake it for the real thing.

It certainly sounded like the real thing. Near a siren at the San Clemente pier, the piercing, 120-decibel, five-minute monotone sounded like a jet takeoff while Twisted Sister performed with its amplifiers turned up to stun.

Either people have gotten accustomed to this annual shriek or the newspaper ads, the flashing freeway signs and the 58,000 pieces of mail sent out by Southern California Edison worked.

Ray Golden, a spokesman for Edison, said the test provoked 24 calls to 911, the fewest in at least a decade.

San Clemente City Hall received only one call asking about the racket. But it received three calls complaining that the sirens weren’t loud enough.

In fact, the test revealed that two of the sirens didn’t work properly.

Some people were oblivious to the wailing. Hercules Malapanes was part of a crew laying a sewer line near the pier. After the two test blasts were completed, he was asked about them. “I don’t know what they’re for,” he replied.

Richard Chew, who works in San Clemente’s Marine Safety Division, was lunching at a cafe near the beach when the second siren went off. It was old news to him. In the past, he has tried stuffing napkins into his ears to block the noise. This time he tried to get the day off so he wouldn’t have to listen to it.

The sirens at first put Brooke Campbell, 30, of San Clemente on edge, but that didn’t last long. “I started looking around at my neighbors’ houses to see if they were reacting,” she said. “When I didn’t see anybody running around, I figured nothing was terribly wrong.”

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Times staff writers Tina Borgatta and Dave McKibben contributed to this report.