From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Oct. 1, 1988:

• An unplanned sounding of local tornado sirens had surprised officials as much as residents this week. Douglas County Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Dale Creed said that lightning and heavy rains, not equipment failure, had caused several of the city’s sirens to go off shortly before 10 p.m. during a recent stormy night. “It wasn’t an obvious defect in the circuit board,” Creed said. “Since it happened just once, then there is no move to do anything out of the ordinary.” It would be nearly impossible, Creed explained, to protect the sirens from similar weather conditions in the future. “The only way to guarantee they don’t go off is not to have them,” he added.
• Near-record attendance and a slight increase in admission fees had resulted in record revenue this summer at the Lawrence Municipal Pool. Attendance this year had reached 74,059, a figure that officials said would have been higher if the pool had not lost four days of public swimming to the Junior Olympics. “That’s still a lot of folks,” said Fred DeVictor, director of the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department. “This has been an excellent pool year.” An increase in the admission price to $1.50 for adults and 75 cents for children had enabled the pool to collect $65,185 in 1988.