Escambia Rolls New EMS SUVs With ‘Howler’ Sirens

September 26, 2021

Escambia County has five new EMS SUVs with several new safety features, including “Howler” sirens.

“The Whelen Howler is an emergency warning device that emits low frequency tones, especially for intersections and high risk areas,” said Escambia County EMS Chief David Torsell III. “The Howler runs in sync with the primary siren, allowing the lower frequency reverberating tones from the Howler to better penetrate other vehicles, alerting drivers to the presence of the oncoming emergency vehicle. In essence, it creates a small vibration that many drivers can detect easier than the high frequency tones of standard emergency sirens.”

The SUVs also use radar sensors in a blind spot information system to detect vehicles that enter the driver’s blind spot.

The five SUVs will be used during both the day shift and night shift. The trucks will be assigned to the EMS chief, EMS deputy chief, day supervisors and night supervisors. One SUV will be shared by the Escambia County Public Safety administrative supervisors.

The new fleet of Ford Expedition SUVs will allow the older SUVs with less mileage to be cycled through other positions throughout Escambia County EMS. This process reduces the possibility of these vehicles being out of service for mechanical repair, especially for long periods, and allows for EMS to maximize the availability of the SUV units by maintaining more vehicles on the road for any given time period, according to Escambia County.

“These SUVs are emergency EMS vehicles with paramedics on board,” said Torsell. “Please be aware that these vehicles, when needed, will be traveling to emergency calls and the same process for yielding to emergency vehicles applies.”

Pictured: One of five new Escambia County EMS vehicles. Pictured below: EMS Chief David Torsell III washing one of the new EMS SUVs.

Comments

One Response to “Escambia Rolls New EMS SUVs With ‘Howler’ Sirens”

  1. Angie on September 26th, 2021 9:54 am

    Its nice to see money being spent on our first responders now they just need a good pay raise because they are always there when needed thank you to all our emts paramedics firefighters and police officers who put their lives on the line everyday THANK YOU!!!!!!!