New Mexico Fires: Is Radio Providing Critical Information?

[Kelly A]

The big question, if you believe radio's role in natural disasters should be upgraded, is how would you get stations to provide better emergency planning then they do now.

But as I mentioned, even if broadcasters were staffing their facilities ready to broadcast whatever information, what if there's no information to broadcast? The recent fires in Lahaina, HI are a great example. Emergency services were trying to save themselves while working to get a handle on the situation in town. By that time, it was too late. Radio and TV was still on the air, but with no information. And the LAST thing you want is single-staffed radio station personnel just making stuff up.

Broadcasters will fight tooth and nail any requirement to up their emergency preparedness unless they're getting paid for it.

Radio=business. How do you expect they pay for any potential 'upping' of preparedness?

Does anyone think the government would pay broadcasters or form a special radio service just for emergencies?

Not these days, because if you want to reach the general public it's via their smartphone, not radio. People don't carry around portable radios.

 

[louis_p]

The big question, if you believe radio's role in natural disasters should be upgraded, is how would you get stations to provide better emergency planning then they do now. Broadcasters will fight tooth and nail any requirement to up their emergency preparedness unless they're getting paid for it. Does anyone think the government would pay broadcasters or form a special radio service just for emergencies?

Looks like it’s already happening:

FEMA and Audacy’s WWL Radio Unveil New Emergency Broadcast Studio

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in partnership with Audacy, today announced it has completed an important emergency radio broadcast facility modernization project at Audacy’s WWL AM/FM in New Orleans to improve critical alert and warning capabilities when disasters threaten...

www.fema.gov

Under the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Modernization Act enacted in 2015, Congress required FEMA to upgrade PEP stations across the country to ensure continuity of terrestrial broadcast services under all hazards.

These primary entry point stations are too important to fail:

Broadcasters and Wireless Providers

Local radio and TV stations, along with cable, direct broadcast satellite and wireless service providers, disseminate the public safety messages they receive from IPAWS.

www.fema.gov

 

[louis_p]

Not these days, because if you want to reach the general public it's via their smartphone, not radio. People don't carry around portable radios.

Why can’t the government leverage both forms of communication to reach the masses? Portable radios can be purchased on sites like Temu and AliExpress for under $15. I have this one that can receive clear channel AM signals from a market 100 miles away and the device is the size of a keychain car remote.

There are several examples where the cellular network has been impacted by disasters, and radio could be an essential service for communicating critical updates to vulnerable communities.

 

[Kelly A]

Why can’t the government leverage both forms of communication to reach the masses?

There are many forms of government. State, Local, Federal. Other than when FEMA gets involved in disasters, information to the public is the responsibility of the local emergency services and governors offices. Local are the ones on the ground making the calls. If they don't train and drill their folks on the purpose and how to activate EAS, then it doesn't matter how many radio stations there are with EAS if no alerts are being generated locally.
Consumers aren't going to carry around multiple devices just in case something might happen. Given all that smartphones provide, its silly to think that modern media consumers are going to consider portable radios on a day to day basis.

Portable radios can be purchased on sites like Temu and AliExpress for under $15. I have this one that can receive clear channel AM signals from a market 100 miles away and the device is the size of a keychain car remote.

The reality is, given the increase in terrestrial noise, AM stations can't be picked up 100 miles away anymore, and certainly not on some keychain radio with an internal antenna. Can't cheat the laws of physics. And radio stations are only able to help if they receive information from authorities. In this day and age that means alerts to phones and social media come first, not activating EAS nor reaching out to local radio stations because they already know that's not where people are paying attention.

There are several examples where the cellular network has been impacted by disasters, and radio could be an essential service for communicating critical updates to vulnerable communities.

That's said here many times, but one could argue there are just as many examples where disasters occurred and cell/PCS was up and running, even at a limited level. In essence, radio being involved would not have helped the situation because largely the public isn't paying attention to radio as a source of news anymore.

 

[ajaynejr]

Could (Would) emergency information providers spring up and create ready-to-air emergency information? Then cut deals with radio stations to have staff to put this information for specific different area(s) on the air, for example at :05, :20, :35 and :50 past the hour every hour? The rest of the time the station does its regular programming for its local area.

 

[secondchoice]

Occasionally a local county's grant writer finds "free" back up power generators for a local politically connected radio station. The problem is the local 911 centers or emergency operations centers don't have the "page" in the emergency manual (most emergency operations have the plastic covered notebooks in case of computer issues) or screen to activate EAS locally. Good or bad these folks are trained to "follow the manual" during an emergency. Only fire or police chiefs (or higher ranking officials) can deviate from the manual without fear of being fired in lot of locations.

 

[secondchoice]

There are many forms of government. State, Local, Federal. Other than when FEMA gets involved in disasters, information to the public is the responsibility of the local emergency services and governors offices. Local are the ones on the ground making the calls. If they don't train and drill their folks on the purpose and how to activate EAS, then it doesn't matter how many radio stations there are with EAS if no alerts are being generated locally.
Consumers aren't going to carry around multiple devices just in case something might happen. Given all that smartphones provide, its silly to think that modern media consumers are going to consider portable radios on a day to day basis.

The reality is, given the increase in terrestrial noise, AM stations can't be picked up 100 miles away anymore, and certainly not on some keychain radio with an internal antenna. Can't cheat the laws of physics. And radio stations are only able to help if they receive information from authorities. In this day and age that means alerts to phones and social media come first, not activating EAS nor reaching out to local radio stations because they already know that's not where people are paying attention.

That's said here many times, but one could argue there are just as many examples where disasters occurred and cell/PCS was up and running, even at a limited level. In essence, radio being involved would not have helped the situation because largely the public isn't paying attention to radio as a source of news anymore.

Unprepared folks don't have an "emergency kit" either. Darwin had something about the dumb individuals of a species not surviving.

A couple of years ago we a storm that took out the commercial power because a rather large transformer was damaged beyond repair due to piece of metal roofing landing in the switch yard. To GA Power's credit they had a spare installed 8 hours later. During the outage I got the battery radio out and I could pick up AM stations that I normally couldn't get because of the limited AC noise caused by modern society's required devices. I was using T-Mobile at the time and it failed after 2 or 3 hours. I can see the local site when I go to town and the tower lights were not working either


Murphy's law is real. A disaster will most likely happen different than you plan.


It should concern everyone that the Internet might not always be available. Around here all communication cables are at one time or another on former electric company poles. GA Power has buried almost all of its power lines going to residences and businesses. They are not as vigilant on trimming trees hanging over the right of way as they once were.

Two summers ago a dump truck with a driver "who refused a drug test" missed a turn flipped a truck load of gravel and took out all phone, cable and cell service for the Northern part of Pickens county for several hours. Nothing is totally safe from intoxicated and stupid people. We had an power outage from a crew replacing a water line at a house. Somehow nobody got electrocuted. The guys loaded up their ditch witch and left the scene. The homeowner ended up paying GA Power for the repair. The crew was hired from a Internet listing in Atlanta. They didn't use the free underground utilities locator service. If you use anyone who will be digging make sure they are insured.

 

[kwthom]

Yesterday afternoon, I clicked on the link for KRUI, where they were providing information.

The ended their spiel with "For more info, contact the Ruidoso web page at <...> and Facebook.com slash <...>"

Even though there's some info being disseminated, most of the current news is being handled by various social media channels.

Ruidoso is in a canyon. People were told - and did - evacuate the area. Those that are being found now (two dead last I heard) were found in vehicles that had burned.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

The reality is, given the increase in terrestrial noise, AM stations can't be picked up 100 miles away anymore, and certainly not on some keychain radio with an internal antenna. Can't cheat the laws of physics. And radio stations are only able to help if they receive information from authorities. In this day and age that means alerts to phones and social media come first, not activating EAS nor reaching out to local radio stations because they already know that's not where people are paying attention.

That's said here many times, but one could argue there are just as many examples where disasters occurred and cell/PCS was up and running, even at a limited level. In essence, radio being involved would not have helped the situation because largely the public isn't paying attention to radio as a source of news anymore.

Except up here.. of course theres exceptions to every rule

Thats why 5 and 10kw AM's even in the land of 50 to 75 c kwh power still exist. You can hear AMs 150-200 miles away or more.

And in a disaster, in rural Alaska, cell networks will crash and burn.
They do, even when a disaster isnt happening

 

[louis_p]

It should concern everyone that the Internet might not always be available.

This is my concern as well. While there is redundancy, high availability, and failover for the top-level peering infrastructure nodes, there are several vulnerable components within the "last mile" of delivering internet service to consumers.

As you mentioned, there's the risk of physical damage to the cell towers as well as impact of extended power outages beyond the capacity of the backup power supply.

There's also a risk that the fiber cable that provides the internet backhaul to the tower is damaged. This frequently happens when undersea cables are damaged by ship anchors but there have been incidents with construction crews damaging cables on land as well. Just because your phone indicates that it is connected to a tower and displays the LTE/5G icon doesn't mean that you'll have access to the public internet.

Also, there's a risk of cyberattacks from state-sponsored terrorism. There are a lot of backdoors and vulnerabilities in IOT device firmware, firewalls, and network protocols that even the most advanced security research firms haven't identified yet. The threat of cyberwarfare is real.

 

[Kelly A]

Except up here.. of course theres exceptions to every rule

Thats why 5 and 10kw AM's even in the land of 50 to 75 c kwh power still exist. You can hear AMs 150-200 miles away or more.

And in a disaster, in rural Alaska, cell networks will crash and burn.
They do, even when a disaster isnt happening

And within that coverage, what is the population count?

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

And within that coverage, what is the population count?

KSKO's owned and operated signals cover about 1200 people

 

[Kelly A]

Unprepared folks don't have an "emergency kit" either. Darwin had something about the dumb individuals of a species not surviving.

I wouldn't go so far as to call people who don't own portable radios "dumb". Aside from the pandemic, a large percentage of U.S. citizens will live their lives with no serious natural or manmade disasters. Only a tiny percentage are 'preppers' or prepared to handle some emergency. Heck, a large percentage of lower-income folks don't even have a bank account, let alone savings that could be used if some financial emergency hits.

A couple of years ago we a storm that took out the commercial power because a rather large transformer was damaged beyond repair due to piece of metal roofing landing in the switch yard. To GA Power's credit they had a spare installed 8 hours later. During the outage I got the battery radio out and I could pick up AM stations that I normally couldn't get because of the limited AC noise caused by modern society's required devices.

And what did you listen to during the outage? Political talk radio? How did that help you during the outage?

Murphy's law is real. A disaster will most likely happen different than you plan.

I agree, but as someone else mentioned; emergencies happen in a form that you least expect. You can't or won't be prepared for everything, nor will a radio station be prepared, or have all the information available to save you.

It should concern everyone that the Internet might not always be available. Around here all communication cables are at one time or another on former electric company poles. GA Power has buried almost all of its power lines going to residences and businesses. They are not as vigilant on trimming trees hanging over the right of way as they once were.

I agree, and likely the vast majority of society will curl up in a fetal position and wait until bars appear on their smartphone again.
Wishing everyone carried around portable radios with fresh batteries is no more effective than wishing on a star. Not unlike thinking radio stations should all have 24/7 news departments ready to cover some local emergency when it happens.

 

[Kelly A]

KSKO's owned and operated signals cover about 1200 people

That doesn't include the 5kW and 10kW AM's that travel hundreds of miles and can still be picked up on a Realistic pocket portable radio from inside a steel Quonset hut is it?

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

That doesn't include the 5kW and 10kW AM's that travel hundreds of miles and can still be picked up on a Realistic pocket portable radio from inside a steel Quonset hut is it?

Some listeners on the SW end of our listening area can hear KYUK 640 from Bethel......... and some people scatter5ed about with good radios, might might hear the 10 and 50kw clears 250 miles away in Fairbanks and anchorage

 

[Kelly A]

Some listeners on the SW end of our listening area can hear KYUK 640 from Bethel......... and some people scatter5ed about with good radios, might might hear the 10 and 50kw clears 250 miles away in Fairbanks and anchorage

With a portable radio and whip antenna? Because you average citizen, even in Moose Testical, AK, isn't going to string out a long wire.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

With a portable radio and whip antenna? Because you average citizen, even in Moose Testical, AK, isn't going to string out a long wire.

Actually, youre wrong.. not current day, but a ton of people used to do it back in the day.... when people hear im a "Dxer" they ask what that is, i tell them and they all regale stories of having to do that back in the day to hear the big FBX or ANC signals

 

[Kelly A]

Actually, youre wrong.. not current day, but a ton of people used to do it back in the day.... when people hear im a "Dxer" they ask what that is, i tell them and they all regale stories of having to do that back in the day to hear the big FBX or ANC signals

This isn't back in the day. This is 2024. I believe that's what we're talking about. The past is past.

 

[TheBigA]

Three radio stations affected by the New Mexico fires:

FCC: Wildfires Silence Three New Mexico Stations.

A pair of wildfires near Ruidoso, NM continued to burn Friday, spreading across thousands of acres in southern New Mexico. The Federal Communications Commission says three radio stations in the

www.insideradio.com

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

This isn't back in the day. This is 2024. I believe that's what we're talking about. The past is past.

Some people in the hinterlands might to hear KYUK or KBRW in the vast expanse of service area they serve.. not many, but a few might