The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "sirens" ...
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The Siren Song of Alcohol
Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa, is facing a staggering upward trend of alcohol-related injury. Ambulance calls taking place at night and early morning hours are consuming and straining city emergency medical response resources. Binge drinking, drunk driving, and blacking out have all on the rise over the last five years.
Tags: drunk; drinking; alcohol; Iowa City; University of Iowa; binge; ambulance; injury; blackout; driving; intoxication; strain; resources; emergency; violence; deaths;
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Silent Sirens: Are you safe if a tornado comes?
This investigation by WSYX-TV revealed that dozens of Franklin County, Ohio tornado sirens were in disrepair due to human error. The investigation alerted area residents that the majority of the county's tornado sirens were not fully functional, some not working at all.
Tags: tornado; safety; alarms; natural disaster; city government; county
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Lights and Sirens
The emergency vehicles in Baltimore are involved in a large number of violent crashes each year. The most common link among all of the accidents is that rookie officers are not obeying the rules. Over half of the police cars drove more than 10 mph over the speed limit on emergency calls, which is against the rules. In other situations, 8 out of 10 vehicles would speed without deploying lights and sirens.
Tags: Mary Jones; police; sirens; speeding; speed limit; car crash; accident; emergency; reckless driving
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Cause For Alarm
Nearly 200,000 people, and many schools and parks, in a nine-county area Indiana cannot be warned about tornadoes because their homes are not within the range of the tornado sirens. The WTHR team found that the sirens failed to activate thousands of times, many are broken beyond repair, and those in charge of maintaining the sirens are avoiding the repairs.
Tags: tornado; siren; warning system; natural disaster; twister
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Peoria Selected Storm Ready
Okeson looked at how adequately Peoria County, Ill., was covered by tornado sirens. She found that the sirens covered census blocks for all but about 5,400 people in the country, or about three percent of Peoria County residents.
Tags: tornadoes; natural disasters; Peoria County; ArcGIS
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Siren song: Gambling's allure
Utah formally outlaws all forms of gambling. However, it is available in both illegal and legal forms. There is extensive gambling on the border between Idaho and Utah. Also "bingo halls" and "poker clubs", numerous in Utah, are essentially casinos using loopholes in the law. Internet gambling also is popular due to lax law enforcement.
Tags: gambling; Utah; casinos; lottery; illegal gambling; bingo; poker
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Tornado Sirens Go Unheard in Many Parts
Ian Demsky of the Tennessean performs an analysis of tornado warning sirens in the metropolis area. What he found was that, despite the risks, many parts of nearby Davidson County are unable to hear the warnings. Some emergency officials were quoted as saying that the warning sirens are only meant to warn those outside, not those within their homes.
Tags: tornado safety
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Wiped Out
BUSINESSWEEK tells the tale of how roughly 90 Proctor & Gamble workers were lured into quitting their jobs by the siren's call of a local stockbroker who promised them untold riches. Bill Gibbs, the stockbroker, convinced older workers to quit their jobs so he could gain control of their company-funded retirement accounts. As Gibbs' original investments began to falter, he sank his clients' portfolios heavily into tech and Internet stocks just as those sectors were peaking and about to begin devastating declines. Within a year, most of these workers saw their life savings wiped out.
Tags: A.G. Edwards; Procter & Gamble Co.; oil; health benefits; stockbroker; investing; life insurance; retirees; tech stocks; Internet stocks; portfolio; J.D. Power and Associates Inc.; First Union Brokerage; high yields; Dow Jones Industrial Average; Dow Dividend Strategy; Individual Retirement Account; Chevron; General Electric; General Motors; International Paper; 3M; high risk stocks; bankruptcy
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Mustard Gas Mystery
Sirens on the chemical detection units began a chorus of mournful wails "whoop-whoop-whoop." With clumsy measured strides inside rubber protective suits, three Czechoslovak chemical warfare experts approached a dark stain in the sand of the Saudi desert. The Czechs called the substance Yperite, commonly known as mustard gas, which causes blindness, skin blisters, inflammation of the nose and throat and eventually a painful choking death. Is the United States responsible for the spill?
Tags: Chemical weapons; Iraq; mustard gas
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Fire Trucks
This story uncovers dangerous conditions within the Detroit Fire Department, including fire trucks that can't pump water, trucks with rescue ladders that do not work and can't raise into the air, broken sirens, and failing brakes. Reporters take a secret fire truck graveyard where maintenence workers say they are ordered to canabilize parts from thirty-year-old trucks to use on fire trucks currently on the streets fighting fires.
Tags: TAPE