Thank you very much for accepting this presentation. What I will start out with is what the presentation is going to cover.What's discussed in this report is an overview of what was investigated and some of the findings and some recommendations and some conclusions. Before I start out, I'd like to start with this image This is a picture of my cat Conelrad, connie for short, and she is on top of some of the radio's that have been used in the last five years as a part of the monitoring project component of this research. And although monitoring went on all the time a lot of it due to propagation issues took place at night. So as you can tell this is right next to my bed. Now i share this bed with someone, my wife...who has been very supportive of this activity although, when I am listening to some big station like KSL or KOA and they screw up; and it happens to be at 2 AM, I might get very turned on by all of this....but my wife, well she has had to put up with a lot over the years. I'd just like to say, thank you to Kathy for all here support and putting up with me through all of this. She couldn't make it this time, but thanks Kathy you've been a wonderful support to me.

What I did in this study was to look at the Minot, North Dakota derailment as a case study. I interviewed radio and emergency management personnel there, and reviewed over 200 911 calls on this event. Also, using Minot as a model I collected data from two other derailments and compared these to Minot. I also reviewed traditional literature and data, and analyzed information from the Media Security and Reliability council. I also analyze a model on localism which focused on the geographic distribution of stations and local programming needs. I will not discuss that today, but that was part of this research. In addition I also surveyed a small sample of stations found in towns with similar size populations to that of Minot and close to rail and transportation lines.

Now the overview of this presentation

What is the new localism? I use the term new localism to balance out the notion of what localism is becoming these days in the literature. It was already discussed somewhat here. I think you can look at this two ways. One way you can look at this is localism is indeed eroding away, but at the same time perhaps you can suggest that there is a new form of localism emerging in radio markets today, in the context of de-regulation and these new policies set around these perceptual notions about the responsibilities of radio stations in particular.

What's unique about the Minot derailment is that it sets the tone, it is an icon for all this issue of deregulation. It occurs at a time when de-regulation issues, low powered FM stations, and all these issues are just starting to take off.

Let's look at this derailment in particular. (IMAGE). I spent a year in Minot, so I know what its like to be there in January at six below zero, I don't know what it's like to be breathing pure ammonia. The derailment occurred on the 18th of January, at 1:37 in the morning, about one half mile from Minot, about 200,000 gallons of Anhydrous Ammonia came from five cars that were breached. There were more than just five cars derailed, it was a Canadian National Railway train. Canadian National is still involved in litigation surrounding this derailment, one of the worst in their history.

The National Transportation Safety Board came out with a statement which read that (image), The Minot Police Department attempted to contact the designated local emergency broadcast radio and television stations. At the time of the accident, only one person was working at the designated local emergency broadcast radio station (KCJB-AM), and the police department's calls to the station went unanswered. The designated local emergency broadcast television station (KMOT) did not have an overnight crew at the station. To arrange emergency broadcasts, the police department had to contact the KMOT news director at his home.

This all came out in the climate of this deregulation atmosphere that has been already talked about here this afternoon, Minot becomes the moniker of all of this. I am limited in time here but we can note briefly that then FCC Chairman Powell, in the 2003 hearings, responding to an Oregon Congressman, alluding to Minot, he says Candidly, I am troubled.... I am concerned about media concentration, particularly in radio (image). Interesting enough at that meeting the only ones there in support of corporate radio, was Clear Channel Broadcasting's CEO Lowry Mays and president Mark Mays, and discuss the issues at Minot, North Dakota. Without getting into that any deeper, what is interesting is how the events at Minot, just keep coming up and keep coming up around these issues of localism.

The University of California at San Francisco department of media studies did a study called, Clear Channel and the Public Airwaves in that study stated that (image). Then in January 2002, there was a chemical spill in Minot North Dakota, where Clear Channel owns all six radio stations, including the designated emergency broadcaster, KCJB. Yet no one responded to the call from Emergency Services because the station was on automatic, piping out a satellite feed. This was not unusual as Clear Channel only employs one full-time news employee in Minot, who rips and reads the newscasts from state and national wire services.

I was in radio some years back and remember ripping and reading but I don't know if they do that anymore. I think today its all over the internet services.

A study from Cornell, which is also interesting states (image), in at least one instance, Clear Channel's cost cutting practices have undermined public safety. In Minot ND. the lack of staffing at Clear Channel's radio stations impeded the activation of the emergency radio response system following a train derailment and a hazardous spill.

Minot and Clear Channel just keeps coming up and coming up. What happened to radio in Minot? In my research I state that in considering what went wrong at Minot, the role of local radio immediately was scrutinized. In the wake of Federal Communications deregulation and the emergence of multiple ownership rules for media, the rationale for what happened at KCJB was quickly shifted to the problems of big business, media consolidation and the consequent demise of localism.

In my case studies however, I found something a little bit different. First a primmer on the emergency alert system. CONELRAD is the established protocol. President Truman instituted this program in the early 50s. Basically Truman's perspective on this was to produce a localized, not a national system. CONELRAD came into full swing in 1961 to mess with the direction finding systems on Russian aircraft coming over the poles to reach targets in the US. At that time bombers relied on automatic direction finding equipment that used the signals of AM radio stations in target cities as homing signals. So CONELRAD was an active system.

But guess what? Russians got wise and got new technology, and no longer was CONELRAD a viable system anymore and we had to respond to that and we did by dropping CONELRAD and going to a new system called the Emergency Broadcasting System in 1963. This was a non-digital system run primarily on the telephone lines and wire service. It is the only system amongst three, so far, that has had a national activation, which in 1971 was an awareness activation from Cheyenne Mountain just up the road, which put thousands of radio stations around the country into a tizzy. In 1994 through 1997 an all digital alert system emerges to take the place of the EBS system call the Emergency Alert System, and that is what is in place today.

The EAS digital technology basically works like this: (image) Here is an EAS box right here, that may be like one found at a radio station. In order to get into this box you must have an digital endec, and encoder and decoder system. An official who has the authority under the state plan to activate the endec can then activate the EAS box. If the Ward county or City authorities in Minot had an endec that morning, and there is debate as to whether they had one or it was not working, they could have accessed KCJB radio. KCJB, the LP1 in that particular area then would of sent the EAS to all other monitoring stations listening to its signal. KCJB cannot activate an EAS on its own. If you want to activate the EAS you must have an ENDEC to do it. Or you have to be able to actively involve your self with someone who has an endec who can do the activation for you. So even if Lt. Debowey of the Minot Police Department could of called KCJB that morning and gotten through, they still could not have activated an EAS because they were not authorized to do that in the state plan. Minot authorities could have activated the EAS at KCJB another way , by contacting the state warning point in Bismarck, or the National Weather Service in Bismarck or the authorized warning point at KFYR in Bismarck.

But this is the debate, the technical side of it. Here's the human side of it. I had the opportunity to listen to hundreds of these. I can't imagine what its like to breathe this stuff.......(911 call runs 1:45 AM....Trucker from Canada calls 911. He is out of truck. The 911 operator tells him to get back in truck, close windows, and move truck. Calls back at 0153:57 and is lost in middle of field. 911 operator says it is anhydrous ammonia and to get in clear air before hanging up. To hear the actual call TAP HERE). This is the kind of calls the emergency management office was getting to the point where they were taking more calls in one hour than they had previously had in a whole year!

The calls overloaded their system and the their telephone lines went down. Sirens in the local are did not work, and on top of it all they could not get in contact with the local radio or television station. Could the city of Minot or Ward County emergency management have access the EAS system that morning? Yes, they could have. If they would have contacted the correct state plan warning points, KFYR, the National Weather Service, the state Warning Point. These contact points would have activated KCJBs EAS box and made the alert. KCJB's system did work, because the National Weather Service had just activated KCJBs system shortly before this event in a Weather Alert. In addition to that, if the endec would have been working they could have accessed into that system as well.

The NTSB states it as well, (image) The Minot Police Department attempted to contact the designated local emergency broadcast radio and television stations. At the time of the accident, only one person was working at the designated local emergency broadcast radio station (KCJB-AM), and the police department's calls to the station went unanswered. The designated local emergency broadcast television station (KMOT) did not have an overnight crew at the station. To arrange emergency broadcasts, the police department had to contact the KMOT news director at his home"

Listen to this 911 operator at 2 am that morning as she is dealing with a lady worried about where she is going to get information on what to do and how to survive. ( run 911 call, Caller asking what is in the air­it smells like ammonia. The 911 operator did not know what the chemical is, but tune to EBS system (television or radio. TAP HERE to hear the call.)

"We will get word to you through the EBS system." EBS system went out in 1997. It's over with.

What role does localism play within the scope of the EAS. Since the beginnings of this research I have looked at two additional derailments. One was in Macdona, Texas and the other most recently in Graniteville South Carolina. Both of these derailments produced injuries, evacuations and deaths. In Graniteville there were nine deaths in Macdona, three deaths. The studies I conducted on these cities used a standard protocol, where I went in and interviewed the primary activation points and the radio stations to see how the EAS alert for these events were handled. In Madonna, Texas there was no EAS activation given out. However, it was Clear Channel's LP1 WOAI and a COX Broadcasting Station, KYYX both corporate clusters in the San Antonio market carried the emergency from start to finish by using their news departments getting information from scanners.

The bottom line to all of this can be summed up in some stark realities. The only EAS requirement for broadcasters is that you only have to carry the presidential announcement and the monthly tests. And the reality is there has never been a national activation. Point, being is, during the Northridge Earthquake, St. Helens, even 9-11, there has never been a national activation for the EAS. Rudman suggests for 911 that there was a massive effort to tell the rapidly unfolding and changing story of the emergency as accurately as possible. and how was that done? It was done through network radio and television.

I'd just like to end up with this little story about Henny Penny, the Sky is Falling? As for the technology of the digital emergency alert system, it is
as much at home in a small town's unattended automated studio, as it is in a low powered FM station, or bolted to the communications rack of a corporate cluster broadcaster. By itself the EAS is localism. But, those evaluating the EAS need to keep in mind that this is foremost a sand alone product that is made to operate independently using digital state-of-the-art technology. However the EAS is also a system that employs two very different human organizations to make it work. Local, county, state and federal agencies must work cooperatively with private (and public) broadcasters who in-turn run this system as an unfunded mandate.. If the system has merit at all it must be supported equitably from both of these two sectors to make it work. Otherwise, like Henny Penny we might find ourselves marching into the den of the fox concerned about something we really know nothing about and consequently might pay the ultimate price for given our ignorance.

All parts to this research are copyright 2005 by Dr. M.Mustoe.
Permission for use is available by contacting the author via email.
State in the subject line of your email "Civil Defense".