Galena News

The Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) rule is part of the 1996 Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) which requires public water utilities to provide consumers more information on their drinking water and opportunities to get involved in protecting their sources of water.

Under the CCR rule, all public water utilities are required to provide consumers with an annual water quality report known as a Consumer Confidence Report. These reports must be delivered to customers by July 1 of each year. Copies of the Consumer Confidence Report may be viewed by visiting https://galenaks.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/2024-CCR-1.pdf. Paper copies are available at City Hall located at 211 w 7^th Street, Galena, Ks 66739. For more information, please contact us at 620-783-5265 ext.1.      

City offices will closed today, Monday, May 19, 2025 at 2:00 pm due to impending weather. For Utility Emergencies please call 620-783-1991 ext. 9.

The regular City Council meeting scheduled for today, Monday, May 19, 2025 at 6:00 pm has been cancelled due to impending weather. A Special Meeting will be scheduled for a later date and time.

The most important things to remember about bad weather:

• GET IN – If you are outside, get inside.  If you’re already inside, get as far into the middle of the building as possible.
• GET DOWN – Get underground if possible.  If you cannot, go to the lowest floor possible.
• COVER UP – Flying and falling debris are a storm’s number one killer.  Use pillows, blankets, coats, helmets, etc to cover up and protect your head and body from flying debris.

Here are Some Ideas

• Bathrooms
  
  Bathrooms MAY be a good shelter, provided they are not along an outside wall and have no windows.  Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing magically safe about getting in a bathtub with a mattress.  In some cases, this might be a great shelter.  However, it depends on where your bathroom is.  If your bathroom has windows and is along an outside wall, it’s probably not the best shelter.
  
  Bathrooms have proven to be adequate tornado shelters in many cases for a couple of reasons.  First, bathrooms are typically small rooms with no windows in the middle of a building.  Secondly, it is thought that the plumbing within the walls of a bathroom helps to add some structural strength to the room.
  
  However, with tornadoes there are no absolutes, and you should look closely at your home when determining your shelter area.
• Closets
  
  A small interior closet might be a shelter.  Again, the closet should be as deep inside the building as possible, with no outside walls, doors or windows.  Be sure to close the door and cover up.
• Hallways
  
  If a hallway is your shelter area, be sure to shut all doors.  Again, the goal is to create as many barriers as possible between you and the flying debris in and near a tornado. To be an effective shelter, a hallway should as be far inside the building as possible and should not have any openings to the outside (windows and doors).
• Under Stairs
  
  The space underneath a stairwell could be used as a shelter.

City of Galena currently has trees, limbs, potential live power lines, and storm debris in roads, parks, and intersections. Please be cautious

3.27.2025

Citizens of Galena,

Since we are entering storm season in the 4-States, we thought it would be beneficial to provide some information on our various sirens that you may hear every so often in town. We also recognize that we have individuals that have recently moved to town or may only work in town and are not accustom to the few different sirens that we set off. Please read the below explanations of what Galena has and how they work:

• Galena has 7 tornado sirens placed throughout the city. (Empire & Jefferson, 5th & Chicago, Fire Dept., 11th & Dewey, 12th & Yale, 21st & Dewey, Park Hill Blvd.) Riverton also has one tornado siren. 
• When are the tornado sirens tested? They are only tested during the month of March on Wednesday’s at 10am. If the weather is cloudy or stormy, the siren test is postponed until the following Wednesday. However, the State of Kansas may issue a separate siren test at any given time. 
• Typically, our dispatch services set off any rural sirens, allowing cities to manage their own sirens. However, dispatch does have the ability to set them off if need be. 
• During potential upcoming storm events, a trained first responder is always at the Galena Fire Department to set the tornado siren off if the correct conditions are met.
• What conditions must be met during weather events to activate the siren? The tornado sirens are activated during a radar indicated tornado for our local area of the county, or a storm spotter has reported a tornado in our area of the county (e.g. our sirens will not be activated if the storm threat is in the northern part of our county and not close to us.). The tornado siren will also be activated if the wind speed reaches 70mph or above.
• Who services our tornado sirens? Galena’s tornado sirens are monitored by a company called Blue Valley. When the sirens are tested, Blue Valley is notified and monitors the sirens output. This identifies if the sirens are working as intended or if they need serviced. If any resident notices a siren not functioning, or a siren pole damaged, they can call the Fire Department or City Hall to notify city personnel of the issue.
• Does Galena have an air raid siren? No, not officially. But the tornado or fire siren could be used if needed. 
• What is a fire siren? A fire siren was the earliest way of summoning a volunteer fireman to a fire by the ringing of a bell that was either mounted atop the fire station, or in the belfry of a local church. As electricity became available, the first fire sirens were manufactured. The popularity of fire sirens took off by the 1920’s. Since the 1970’s, many communities have since deactivated their fire sirens as pagers became available for fire department use. Some sirens remain as a backup to pager systems. Galena has kept this long-standing tradition in place to honor not only the fire department community as a whole, but also to honor the memory of longtime, former Chief Bill Hall who was determined to keep this tradition alive in our community.
• When are fire sirens Used? In Galena, they are only used to alert volunteer firemen during the daylight hours, year round. Once the sun goes down, they do not deploy the use of the siren.
• How can I tell the difference between a tornado siren and a fire siren? As previously mentioned, the tornado sirens are placed throughout the City of Galena, as opposed to the fire siren, which is only at the Fire Department. While they may be initially similar in pitch, citizens can discern the difference by listening to the tones the sirens give. Traditionally, tornado sirens give off a more long standing wail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOSTEarWrqQ
• Fire sirens gives off alternating shorter tones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqGpTn4ggFI     or     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cYIJDlvXFk

We hope that this helps provide some clarity to the different sirens and helps you and your family better prepare for nature’s events that occur more often than we prefer. I personally ask, whenever you hear one of the sirens, say a prayer…you never know whose property or lives are at stake! And we appreciate all of our first responders that are continuously dealing with the impacts of both of the sirens mentioned above!

*P.S. I would like to thank Officer McCool for gathering the information contained in this letter. She worked hard, on her own merits, to obtain this information for the benefit of our community!

Sincerely,

Ashley Qualls Groves

Mayor