Digital sign makes messaging easier

NORTH ENGLISH — “Watch for ice,” a digital sign outside the North English Fire Station warned drivers on a foggy day in January.

The new sign replaces an unlighted sign board with physical letters that fell off and got lost. The fire department used the sign to announce community events and news, to announce boil orders and to congratulate high school graduates, said Mark Allison, North English Fire Department’s treasurer.

“And I think that’s part of why the city helped,” Allison said. Other than social media, the town has no way to get information to people, he said.

The city needed a way to get information to the community, said North English Mayor Dan Strohman, so it agreed to pay half the cost of a new sign. Neither Strohman nor Allison wanted to say how much the new sign cost.

With half of the money coming from the city, the fire department had to find a way to come up with the other half without using taxpayer dollars marked for fire needs, Allison said.

Firefighters organized a can drive, asking residents to drop of cans that have Iowa deposits. The fire department drove the cans to the Can Shed in Iowa City to collect five cents per can.

“We put on the old sign, ‘Can drive for new sign,’” Allison said.

The response amazed Alison. “Every other day it was a full trailer. It was enough to pay for our half of the sign.”

The can drive was so successful that the fire department still takes cans. People can’t return them to grocery stores, said Allison, and dropping them off at the fire station is an easy way to get rid of them.

People still bring cans, so the fire department still takes them. “I hate to take it away when townspeople use it,” Alison said.

The new sign has a wireless connection to a laptop in the office, which Allison programs with messages. “When we first put it up, I put up, ‘Test message. Do not read,’” Allison said.

Later, when two winter storms dumped nearly two feet of snow in the area and temperatures fell below zero, the sign said, “Stay home. Stay warm.”

The fire department set the posts and ran power to the sign. CR Signs in Cedar Rapids put up the new sign and taught Allison how to use it.

“I work for the phone company, so I guess I’m the tech person,” said Allison. A couple of other people have also been trained to program the sign when Allison isn’t available.

“I sure appreciate the community helping out on it,” Allison said.

The fire station is a good spot for the sign, said Strohman. “If we put it on the highway … we’d have had to get permits from the [Department of Transportation],” he said.

“We avoided all of that by putting it at the fire station.”

CR Signs was helpful finding the right place for the sign and helping meet all the regulations, such as the height of the sign, said Strohman.

It couldn’t be placed too close to powerlines. “That’s the reason we didn’t want it too high,” said Strohman.

The project was in the works for about eight months, said Strohman. He looked into four or five different sign companies before going with CR Signs.

“They seem to know what they’re doing,” Allison said.

At night, the top sign of the turns on and dims down to 80% so it’s not too bright. Alison said. He drove into town one night to make sure it was dimming as it was supposed to.

Some people have said the sign isn’t big enough, Allison said. The old sign, purchased from Sam’s Club, was about six feet by five feet.

“It was not a pretty sign,” said Allison, and it didn’t say anything about the fire department. “North English Fire Department” and the department’s logo are displayed prominently on the new sign.