Trumann Awarded Grants for Walking Track, New Tornado Sirens

TRUMANN, Ark. — Trumann has been awarded two grants expected to bring visible improvements to the city, including a new walking track at Betty Street Park and funding to replace tornado sirens damaged after severe weather in 2025.

Mayor Jay Paul Woods said one grant will provide $100,000 for work at Betty Street Park on the east side of town.

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The project will add an asphalt walking trail inside the park, along with several ADA-compliant parking spaces, Woods said. He said the park already has playground equipment, but city leaders believed the area needed more amenities.

“We keep it up and everything, but they just needed more,” Woods said. “On that side of town, especially, they needed more.”

Woods said the city had a grant written for the project in hopes of improving the park for nearby residents.

“It’s not a huge park, but we’re going to run a walking trail inside there,” Woods said.

The city also received a second grant, estimated at about $100,000, to replace three tornado sirens damaged during storms in 2025.

Woods said the sirens were affected after severe weather moved through the area in late March and early April of that year.

“In late March/early April, bad storms came through,” Woods said. “We had 11 tornadoes on the ground at one time in Poinsett County. No damage. But the sirens just stayed on constantly. They stayed on so long they burned up.”

He said the sirens were designed to cool themselves automatically, but that system failed.

“They’re supposed to be made to automatically cool themselves down,” Woods said. “But they didn’t and wound up burning up.”

Woods said the city had hoped to secure emergency grant funding before spending local money to replace the sirens.

“We were glad we were able to get those replaced,” Woods said. “We were at the point, we knew we could apply for the grant and it’s an emergency grant. We wanted to see if we could get it before we went and spent the money to replace them.”

According to Woods, the city will order the sirens while grant funding will cover the cost.