The spouter who doesn't like fire sirens misses an important point. The people who respond to that siren are unpaid volunteers. Does he/she begrudge them the chance to fish, or surf or mow the lawn without a pager on their hip? What about pager breakdowns? Does his/her cell phone ever hit dead zones or drop calls? Yes, there is better alerting technology, but it is much more vulnerable to system failure. Does he/she want to risk my family's safety because he/she is annoyed?