Let's Re-Hash Minot, ND again

[PTBoardOp94]

This article presents both sides of the Minot train derailment story. I think its conclusions are the same as many of us have previously arrived at.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...-live-down-the-minot-toxic-spill-disaster.ars

The question it concludes with is another one we hotly debate on this site. If the next big one is in LA, will KNX and KFI be there? KBIG? KNBC-TV? Your iPad?

Even on this technology-centric site, the writer believes that the best chance of getting important information is from good old Amplitude Modulation. Do we feel the same way?

 

[TheBigA]

It would really be nice if actual facts were brought into this instead of the usual quotes. This thing is mainly an attack on Clear Channel, not anything else. The whole thing was debated in Congress, and they concluded that the radio station did nothing wrong. No fines were levied. End of discussion. The only reason this keeps popping up is that some people have a hard on about CC. No problem. The cluster has been for sale for 5 years. No one wants to buy. There are new non-commercial stations on there now too. We'll see what happens the next time a train derails at 3AM.

The bottom line here is that after 9-11, the Department of Homeland Security was created. That changed the rules about who is responsible in disasters. The government gave out hundreds of billions of dollars for emergencies. Not one dollar went to radio. It all went to local emergency officials. They dropped the ball in Minot. That's what Congress concluded.

The REAL question that should have been asked here is why is a train filled with potentially harmful material traveling through a populated area? THAT was the mistake. That should not have happened in the first place. After the accident, the only thing a radio station can do is tell people to stay indoors. But it's 3 AM. Everyone is asleep. The only person who died lived next to the crash site. He was going to die regardless of what a radio station did.

Everyone is looking for someone to blame. I don't know about you, but I don't sleep with the radio on. And I don't know of a radio that automatically comes on when the radio has an emergency to report. This is not a radio problem. It's a civil emergency problem. All radio can do is make their airwaves available if the officials want to use them. But the officials need to know that if they call the main office number at 3AM, they'll probably get a recording.

As for the conclusion about AM being the most dependable source, that's a fine conclusion to reach. But it's important that if we feel that's the solution that those responsible set the system up better. It's not the responsibility of owners or station operators to do that. It's the responsibility of Homeland Security. They have the budget and the mandate. That is the system we work under now. Not the one that existed in 1934.

 

[davideduardo]

The question it concludes with is another one we hotly debate on this site. If the next big one is in LA, will KNX and KFI be there? KBIG? KNBC-TV? Your iPad?

The truth of Minot is that it does not matter if a particular station is there. What matters, and what failed in Minot, is the activation system. The activation system is not dependent on radio stations or their staff. If the station(s) have working EAS equipment, and they did in Minot, any alert will be broadcast from the point of origination.

The bigger issue is not finger pointing but the fact that the Minot incident occured in the overnight period... after midnight. How many people in non-industrial Minot would be listening to the radio at 2 AM? If peak listening times are shown by the PPM to be below 15% of the population, who would have heard an EAS alert in Minot at the lowest-listening time of the day?

The first failure was that of the government authorities on the local level who did not know how to activate the EAS. The second failing is the belief that an activation would be of any benefit at that hour of the night.

 

[gr8oldies]

I'd rather do the Time Warp again but if we must...
Suppose it were 1973, all the radio stations were owned by mom and pop but they all signed off overnight. How would things have been different?

 

[icycool7227]

why don't they just stream ALL of the minot, nd area stations and call it a day?

 

[Prais]

Streaming would be even MORE "limited access" than radio. Not everyone has a computer.

 

[KevinFodor]

I'd rather do the Time Warp again but if we must...
Suppose it were 1973, all the radio stations were owned by mom and pop but they all signed off overnight. How would things have been different?

You raise a good point, GR8t...but I'll bet there was at least one station on the air in Minot, or serving it and available to it 24/7 in 1973. Even in rated markets above 200, I'll bet you can find at least one or two or more stations on the air 24/7 back then.

David is right here. What failed was the EAS. The local authorities, as I recall, didn't know how to properly activate it. The station had the equipment in place to get the word out. Local government dropped the ball.

The point about "who's listening at 2 am?" is also valid.

Were it suggested by someone, though, I'd draw issue with anyone who would suggest one single activation of the EAS (or two...or even three) would be little more than hit and miss as far as reaching a substantial part of the public at that time of night. That's why it behooves any station to have an "emergency plan" in place for getting staff in to man a station 24/7 if conditions warrant. (I think that's actually what happened in Minot...authorities were eventually able to reach the management of the stations...)

Then, you send your police into the streets with sirens blaring and a P.A. announcement saying, "An emergency is happening at this time...tune to your local radio stations for details." That is, unless the Mayor wants to do all the broadcasting over EAS from his office. (Sure...and cows can fly, right?)

 

[TheBigA]

You raise a good point, GR8t...but I'll bet there was at least one station on the air in Minot, or serving it and available to it 24/7 in 1973.

There was, but it was KFGO in Fargo.

This station may have been designated a primary EAS, but it's 5K daytime, 1K night. That's the kind of station you sign off at midnight. I know. I used to do it.

 

[pbf1]

You raise a good point, GR8t...but I'll bet there was at least one station on the air in Minot, or serving it and available to it 24/7 in 1973.

There was, but it was KFGO in Fargo.

This station may have been designated a primary EAS, but it's 5K daytime, 1K night. That's the kind of station you sign off at midnight. I know. I used to do it.

It's KFYR Bismarck, MUCH closer, and 5kW-U.

 

[CaptBob92]

From my experience trying to get local authorities to let the local station know in emergencies back in Ohio my educated guess would be that local authorities just didn't care about learning how to raise an EAS alert and figured they would " just mosey over to the radio station if an emergency occured and tell the guys on the air about it " Ofcourse, there weren't any " guys on the air " but again local authorities don't bother to find that out ahead of time.

In each and every county that I tried to get local police, fire, emergency services officals etc educated about how to release an alert they never got around to learning how to use the sysem. In one town I actually heard a police radio call during which the officer in a cruiser ask his sargent if he should send an alert to the radio station to warn people that a tornado was heading toward town to which the sarg replied " Naw, better not we already put it on the cablevision" go figure.

 

[bossbill]

Our local authorities still can't send two monthly tests in a row without a screw-up.

When I worked for Harris in the 90's and we were pitching EAS systems, the most common misunderstanding was that somehow the EAS system could/would be used for ongoing emergency information regarding a disaster. EAS wasn't designed for that. Come to think of it, EAS wasn't really designed for anything more than making bureaucrats feel that somehow they had done something good.

 

[TVradioguru]

The BoardOP is just trying to stir old debates up again. We may as well debate the death of Elvis. This story is just as dead.

 

[KFodor]

Yeah...but...

Just today, a police department in a different part of Ohio activated EAS for an Amber Alert.

Fine...no problem. Except for the fact that while we were on the air notifying our listeners who were on the lookout for the suspect vehicle, no law enforcement agency apparently got the message about the Amber Alert. Listeners called us saying they were calling 9-1-1 and were being told they had no information on it.

EAS will continue to be a joke until the people who need to learn about how to operate it have learned it. And, I'm not holding my breath here...

 

[CaptBob92]

Jason is right. The problem isn't on the broadcaster's end, we are required to have it in place. The problem is on the emergency services end where they are NOT required to have it or even understand it.

 

[TomT]

Amber alerts are my personal gripe--luckily they aren't big on them here in WV, compared with Ohio.

Not long ago heard an Amber alert on a local station--for an abduction near Dayton. To put this in perspective, Dayton is the same distance from here as Providence, R.I. is from NYC.

 

[davideduardo]

Amber alerts are my personal gripe--luckily they aren't big on them here in WV, compared with Ohio.

Not long ago heard an Amber alert on a local station--for an abduction near Dayton. To put this in perspective, Dayton is the same distance from here as Providence, R.I. is from NYC.

I see, in other words, a few hour's drive away. Many kidnappers try to put a lot of distance between themselves and the original location of the crime.

I'm never annoyed by the hope and possiblity that a child may be recovered through of this system.

 

[gr8oldies]

If its the alert I'm thinking of, the suspect was in Indianapolis in no time flat.