Editor’s note: This article has been edited to correct a quote by Dan Eamon, the city’s emergency manager, Eamon said the city would continue doing everything it does now to deliver warnings but just would be “taking out that one piece” — the sirens.

Longmont will not be turning its malfunctioning outdoor emergency warning sirens back on, City Council members decided Tuesday night.

Nor will the city spend an estimated $500,000 or so to replace the current siren system with one manufactured by a vendor other than the company that made and installed the present system.

Instead, the council directed Longmont’s city staff “to utilize new technologies to provide information to our community” when tornadoes or other severe-weather disasters are a threat.

That may include using a local radio station, mobile-phone text messages, calls to homes’ landlines and messages via computers to warn residents.

Council members voted 7-0 for that approach, although the full electronic warning system — along with other efforts to communicate the approaches of potential disasters — probably won’t be in place until sometime next year.

“I have no problem” with ceasing the use of the outdoor sirens, which typically are sounded just for tests, said Councilman Brian Bagley.

Bagley warned, however, that if “Murphy’s Law” applies, “This is going to be the year that something happens” that the sirens might have otherwise warned people about.

“I’m all for using technology” to alert people, said Councilman Gabe Santos, but he expressed concerns that not everyone — particularly seniors — have mobile phones with which they can get alerts.

However, Dan Eamon, the city’s emergency manager, said alerts could be sent via landlines, similar to reverse 911 calls. He said arrangements could be made to alert staffs of assisted and senior living facilities so they could notify residents and get them to safety.

Eamon said the city would continue doing everything it does now to deliver warnings but just would be “taking out that one piece” — the sirens.

Councilwoman Polly Christensen said she also has concerns “about people who are deaf, who are blind, people who are elderly and without smartphones.”

On the other hand, Christensen said, “most people still don’t know” that the sirens are sounded only for tests and tornado warnings. She suggested that any new city system should include alerts about floods and fires.

Longmont’s public safety staff had recommended the city cease using its outdoor emergency warning sirens because of what the staff said were two incidents of serious malfunctions last year.

Last Oct. 13, many of the city’s 17 outdoor sirens began self-activating as early as 3 a.m. and continued until shortly after 5 that morning. Last June 14, a siren at Sandstone Ranch activated on its own about 4:50 p.m.

“The siren was not able to be shut off from the dispatch center as we had been trained to do, and we were left to figure out how to shut off the siren on our own, manually,” the city staff wrote.

The city staff told the council that it no longer has any confidence in the current system, manufactured and installed several years ago by Acoustic Technology Inc.

“The warning sirens are off, and they’re going to be off for the entire severe-weather season” in 2017, Eamon said, after what he said were “really major malfunctions last year.”

John Fryar: 303-684-5211, jfryar@times-call.com or twitter.com/jfryartc