Jun. 10—Residents living near the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire burn scar in Mora County can expect to hear sirens blaring at noon every Wednesday at least through the summer monsoon.

The New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management announced Monday it will conduct weekly tests of the outdoor emergency alert system as part of an effort to assure residents the sirens work.

The news came amid a flood watch for the region, which has seen two days of rainfall and faces more in the forecast later this week.

“We’ve been doing monthly tests, but they’ve been silent,” department spokeswoman Danielle Silva said about the six sirens, which are designed to warn residents of severe weather that could trigger flash flooding in the burn scar.

“We send kind of a signal out to the sirens and then it sends something back that says it received it,” she said. “But what we heard at [a recent] town hall with the governor from some community members was that they had never heard the sirens and they wanted to, so what we’re doing is one, increasing the frequency and two, making those tests a loud test rather than a silent one.”

Silva said the tests will last less than a minute.

“It’ll be three or four boop, boop, boops,” she said. “But if there’s a [real] flood at noon on a Wednesday, and [the siren] doesn’t stop after a minute, we do want people to know that is not a test. They need to take action to keep safe.”

The department is using the tests as an opportunity to remind residents of Mora County of precautions they need to take in the event of a real emergency.

“If residents hear the sirens outside of the testing window, they should” avoid travel if possible, stay inside, get to higher ground in the event of flooding and never enter floodwaters in a vehicle or on foot, a news release states.

Silva said the sirens are “strategically placed throughout the entire burn scar.” The sirens are equipped to deliver a voice message or a “wailing” sound, which studies have shown reaches a greater distance, she said.

“We do want people to also remember these are outdoor sirens, so if you’re not super close to them and you’re indoors, you may want to have some other form of notification,” she said. “This is just an additional thing because we know sometimes that cell reception isn’t great and the internet is not always a thing people are using.”

The high-powered sirens were initially inoperable.

Documents obtained by The New Mexican in 2022 show that after the state purchased the sirens to alert the public of impending danger from flash floods, the emergency department neglected to purchase the software that made them operational, rendering them useless. At the time, the department said its vendor failed to make the state aware of the need to buy the central control unit needed to make the sirens sound the alarm.

In the news release issued Monday, the department said the weekly tests will ensure the system’s functionality and allow it to address any issues before an emergency occurs.

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.