After a hiatus caused by Hurricane Irma, the bells at Porterfield can again be heard

ALBANY — Residents of northwest Albany may have noticed that the chimes are once again sounding from the steeple of Porterfield Methodist Church in Albany after a recent period of silence caused by Hurricane Irma.

The hourly chimes have been a staple of the religious center for years, marking the passage of time and calling parishioners to worship.

“The system is kind of old,” Porterfield minister the Rev. William Collins said. “During Hurricane Irma a while back, we had an interruption of power, which knocked the system out. The chimes that people hear are not actual bells, like original carillons were, but rather an electronic instrument that mimics a carillon and plays pre-programmed tunes. We had an old one, which was replaced by a computer a while back, but now the computer is quite ancient itself, too.”

A carillon, according to Williams, is a set of fixed chromatically tuned bells sounded by hammers controlled from a keyboard.

“The newer systems are all just software,” Williams said. “And we have had a few glitches with the newer system since it was installed.”

According to Williams, a few years back sound engineer Mark Davis was unaware that the videogame he was playing at the time was broadcasting over the church’s PA system.

“Yeah, we have had some fun with that system, unintentionally,” Williams said. “One of staff personnel here, Mark Davis, who worked a lot on the transition from the old electronic carillon to the new computer program, was here one day waiting for rehearsals and left the computer on. While the rehearsal was going on, he was playing the old Minesweeper videogame and it could be heard everywhere.

“So we have had a couple of little things that mostly come from a power outage — or Mark (Williams laughs) — like we had during Irma and before that during the tornadoes. But everything is back working now.”