It's that time of year — let's Make Ottumwa Shine

Courier Editorial Board

April 25, 2008 10:22 am

— Heads up, Ottumwans. Get your gloves on. It’s the official week to Make Ottumwa Shine. We all need to be reminded of our civic duty from time to time. Jody Gates at City Hall has been providing information regularly about cleaning up areas of Ottumwa. Many of us — individuals, businesses and organizations — have “adopted” an area to clean up. Some have already been out collecting litter. Many will do it on Saturday. Courier folks will try to make Foster Park sparkle on Friday, and one of our employees got a head start Wednesday, putting on her bright green clean-up shirt to pick up debris in our parking lot. Cindy Toopes covers the M.O.S. committee and has for years been cleaning up crap around town. It’s one of the many good things she does for Mother Earth.
We all need to follow these volunteers’ examples. You see the cleaner-uppers out and about all year long, picking up debris alongside roadways and in ditches and sometimes on sidewalks. We applaud them all.
We know those people are working hard this week. It’s time now for all of us to pitch in and do what we can, especially around the area where we live.
Sirens
We had a recent poll on our Courier Web site — ottumwa.com — asking if people could hear the city’s tornado sirens.
We had 65 votes — 36.9 percent said yes, 23.8 percent said barely, and 40 percent said no.
So, a substantial portion of the population is saying they can’t hear the sirens.
We realize that they are “outdoor” sirens.
We suggest, though, that city officials should be concerned.
There are not that many people outside at any given time. If we are, we’re probably in a vehicle.
If you are inside, at home, you probably have the TV turned on and will hear those reports; same for radio. Of course, during tornado season, everyone should keep an eye on the sky and be ready to listen to watches and warnings.
A good idea is to have a weather radio working in your house.
And perhaps, there are other solutions, to make sure we all know of imminent danger. If not, maybe we need to be figuring them out.

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