A concise history of the outdoor warning siren systems of New Jersey can be summed up within three major categories fire sirens, CD sirens, and Power Plant sirens. Many of the sirens across New Jersey are what's known as fire sirens. This means they are used to call Firefighters in the case of an emergency. These sirens in particular can be found on fire departments and or near them however, they can sometimes be spread out throughout the municipality. 

On the other hand civil defense sirens were used as a part of the Civil Defense Initiative in the United States against nuclear weapons. As the threat of nuclear weapons skyrocketed throughout the 60s and 50s these sirens were installed across the United States to warn cities of impending attack. However, over the past 30 years, these systems have been deactivated for the most part due to them being extremely out of date and expensive to keep running. The remainder of these sirens can typically be found on municipal buildings or near municipal land. They can be easily identified because they are typically dual-toned, yellow, and with a CD logo. However, not all yellow sirens are civil defense sirens. 

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Some of the sirens around New Jersey are nuclear power plants sirens that serve or served the three nuclear power plants that are currently in New Jersey. The three nuclear power plants that are in New Jersey currently use the company American Signal Corporation (ASC)  as their siren vendor.

The types of sirens that were used were mostly comprised of Federal Signal, ACA/ASC, HOR, and Sentry/Sterling. Other smaller brands may have also been used but for the majority, these were the brands.