What Happened in Minot? On 18 January 2002, at 1:45 a.m. one mile west of Minot, North Dakota, a freight train of the Canadian Pacific Railway derailed. The train was pulling 112 (North Dakota Emergency Management 2003) cars, twentyone of which derailed. Fifteen cars carried anhydrous ammonia; at least one ruptured and another developed a leak (North Dakota Emergency Management 2003). The event killed one person and sent hundreds of people in Minot and the Ward County area to hospital. A series of lawsuits ensued (Anonymous 2002) which, two years later, are still in litigation (Anonymous 2002; Associated Press 2004).

In their railroad accident report adopted in March 2004, the National Transportation Safety Board reported:

"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" (National Transportation Safety Board 2004 p. 17-18).

According to Ward County Emergency Management Coordinator Thom Mellum, within two minutes of the accident officials from the Canadian Pacific Railway had notified local Ward County authorities that a derailment had occurred near Minot. However, the full scope of the accident was not immediately known. By 2:15 that morning local authorities including the fire department, sheriff, officials from the office of emergency management and the railroad had staged just above the valley where the derailment occurred near the housing subdivision, Tierrecita Vallejo(Mellum T. 2003).

          Mellum noted that by about 2:30 a.m. the group realized that no information had been put out over the radio. It is unclear why this problem existed. One position suggests that "Clear Channel had just bought out all of the stations in town and "the police called the town radio stations, six of which are owned by the corporate giant Clear Channel" but the phone went unanswered (The Information Policy Institute, Tele-Information et al. 2003), suggesting that no one was at the station. (A characterization blamed on Clear Channel and media giants in general that practice a personnel strategy of running unattended stations to save money (Staples B. 2003)). Another argument presents the position that the radio station itself was not technically linked to the EAS at the time of the accident Mellum T., 2003 #110]. Lee, suggests that authorities surrounding the issue are now beginning to admit "that someone was always on duty during the night, but busy phone lines and technological misunderstandings resulted in the emergency failure (Lee J. 2003).

           Rick Stensby, manager of KCJB, and of five other Clear Channel stations in an interview with this researcher confirms that an 18 year veteran board operator was at the controls of the station that night and immediately after the explosion, began "to get calls from listeners in the area asking what had happened. So we got our news man up to go down to the police department and down at the site, so we had live broadcasts going on shortly after, as soon as anybody knew what was going on" (Stensby R. 2004) He notes that local emergency officials, had the old EBS telephone number and could not get through to the station on that number. Jay Davis, former operations manager of KCJB before Clear Channel states:

"We in the KCJB on-air studio, had what was known as the bat phone. It was the direct phone line to the Ward County Civil Defense. They used to do a regular monthly test of that. It was my understanding that as soon as EAS replaced EBS, that that was no longer a part of the equation. That phone stop ringing on a monthly basis when EAS came in" (Davis J. 2004).

In addition the EAS system at the station was operational and had just been actuated a few days earlier by the National Weather Service in Bismarck for a severe winter weather warning. However, on the morning of the derailment the EAS at KCJB was not actuated, from any authorized outside agency capable of activating our system [2004 #363].

What Went Wrong? A key technical issue is that since the EAS system at KCJB could not be activated, likewise, none of the other stations in the local EAS chain could send out any alert. The EAS system can only be actuated by those in authority that decide there needs to be actuation of the EAS. In addition the digital character of EAS allows for actuation of a radio station's monitor with a signal received by it from a remote source; by radio. ENDEC (encoder decoder) units are used to send actuations and emergency messages from operational centers to various radio stations with an operating receiver (KCJB). The former EBS system required a telephone line and a human voice to convey an emergency message. The fully automated EAS can technically operate without any human input, exclusive of that human decision to actuate the system.

          From a human standpoint attempts by local authorities to contact someone by telephone at KCJB, rather than send an actuation from the local dispatch center emulates problems existing with the EBS system. It might also be noted that efforts to contact someone at the local television station (KMOT), also failed. If the EAS at KCJB would have received an actuation signal, KMOT, which monitors KCJB would have also passed this along by interrupting their programming. Fred Debowey, officer in charge of the Minot Community Alert Network system, stated in an interview with this researcher that, "EAS is not really well loved in North Dakota right now and not just because of Minot.

         "We've asked for training, it's not a difficult system to understand, if someone can walk you through it. But we couldn't get the state emergency managers or even the feds would do it, and it's their system" (Debowey F. 2004). He adds that the EAS system failed on both ends during the derailment; the station had equipment on the wrong frequency that, although tested to be good just the friday before failed during the emergency. "We made a mistake here, and they had some wrong equipment" (2004). Mellum added that, "As far as the response during the event everyone worked well together.

          The main problem was with communications. There was not much that we would do differently with regard to responding to it. Getting the crucial information out to people, that's where we fell down" (Mellum T. 2003). Although an EAS alert was not formally issued, there is evidence that a concerted effort to inform the community by both local authorities and radio station personnel was performed: "Once people (local authorities) were able to tell us what to do, it was on the air. We ended up with just about an entire staff, the ones that could get out that early, came in and manned the phones, and started getting the information out on the air (Stensby R. 2004).

            Minot Emergency Services Since the Derailment An extensive overhaul of the communications system was initiated immediately after the derailment which included reviewing both the human links and the mechanics of the system. Mellum stated that since the derailment a concerted effort has been put forth to include the media in the local emergency planning meetings. In addition a direct line now exists from the central dispatch in the county to the National Weather Service in Bismarck, ND so that the EAS can be activated (for any type emergency) directly on both radio and television. Stensby noted that engineers from Clear Channel radio were accessed to help assist with the EAS system at the local dispatch center (Stensby R. 2004) (Draovitch D. 2004). "We learned that we just can't take anything for granted" and now the EAS system is being tested regularly twice each month (Mellum T. 2003).

            Lt. Debowey suggests that the strength of the new system is in its integration with built in back up systems and redundancies that go beyond the dependency placed on the radio and television based EAS. This integrated system includes the conventional EAS system, local community sirens, and a newly acquired Community Alert Network (CAN) (City of Minot 2004) (Debowey F. 2004). CAN is a means of using telephones to alert people who may be impacted by a hazardous event [CAN, 2004 #374]. The CAN system uses a modified Geographic Information System (GIS) that allows emergency management officials to quickly and easily delineate on a computer based map, a perimeter of concern with respect to an emergency event. Once this area is identified and a message is decided on to be sent, the information is sent via the internet along to one of two CAN communications centers in the U.S. From that point the message is immediately processed and sent to telephone numbers identified within the critical area (Dines M. 2004). In a recent test Debowey says that the Minot system, presently funded with a Homeland Security grant, made "96 telephone calls in about 2 minutes" (Debowey F. 2004).

           Mathew Dines, [2004 #129] regional account manager for Community Alert Systems says that the system can reasonably handle 15,000 calls per hour, depending on the size of the message and the number of telephone exchanges the messages will encounter (Baechel K. 2004). The Minot system, first tested in April of 2004, can also incorporate cell phones and is available for all of Ward County (City of Minot 2004). "Everybody has a telephone and at 2 o'clock in the morning the telephone will ring and wakes most people up where the sirens will not wake you up in your house and most people are not watching a TV or listening to a radio at 2 or three or 4 in the morning. So this (CAN) was not the all in one inclusive warning system, it's a piggy back to everything else we have" (Debowey F. 2004).

             A Parallel Scenario: San Antonio, Texas On 28 June 2004, at 5:15 a.m. a collision between a Burlington Northern and Union Pacific freight train near Macdona, Texas, about ten miles southwest of San Antonio, produced a chlorine gas and ammonium nitrate release. 40 cars were derailed from the tracks. Although there was no call for any evacuations, 50 people were sent to hospital and three people died
(Bexar County Emergency Management 2004). The plume from the gas drifted as far as Sea World, a large amusement park in San Antonio "where six people were treated for minor respiratory irritation" (CNN 2004).
First reports of the accident were inadvertent. A 911 call from two women reporting smoke in their house, precipitated the first responses by the fire department. At that time fire officials thought they might be responding to a house fire. But when they arrived on the scene they found the two women in the house dead and noted a green cloud of gas in the area. It was not until about 6:30 a.m. that hazardous material teams began staging in the area (Harris S. 2004).

            EPA Findings In an Emergency Response Review conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency in Dallas, Texas it was determined that a breakdown in communications within the emergency teams responding to the incident occurred that inhibited the public warning phase of the response (Harris S 2004). The EPA's sinal report on the incident stated:

"Incident Commander requested an emergency notification at approximately 0715 hours on June 28. Within the 911 communications center, it was determined the number of houses covered by the notification, based on plume modeling of the chlorine release, was approximately 57,000 and the phone notifications would take an onerous amount of time (approximately 8 hours). The decision not to go forward with the alert was never relayed back to the Incident Commander, who continued to operate under the assumption that the notification was in progress" (Mason S. 2004).

             Limitations to the One System. The system employed in the telephone notification process in Bexar county operates in a similar fashion to that of the CAN system in Minot, ND. That is, once a determination is made that an alert needs to be made, and an appropriate message is decided upon and constructed, an area within the community is electronically delineated, and finally, calls are made to that area. In the case of the Macdona, Texas derailment and release, the area where notification was to be made was determined by the use of Aloha, software model which, given the type of gas released, factored in various meteorological and topographic variables, to provide a spatial model showing the dispersion of the gas plume (Harris S. 2004) (Baechel K. 2004). "In an interview with Robert Adelman, public safety communications manager for the sheriff's department, told the San Antonio Express-News, The computerized telephone warning system wasn't designed to handle blanket calls to thousands of households, Adelman said, 'so officials turned to public announcements on television and radio'" (Associated Press 2004). However these announcements were not EAS actuations. As Harris points out the system to enable the county to release EAS activations is not in place yet, and the county has been working with NOAA to get it started (Harris S. 2004).

           No EAS Actuation Within the San Antonio region, according to the Texas State EAS Plan (Texas Association of Broadcasters 2003), the LP1 for the area is WOAI 1200 AM, owned by Clear Channel Broadcasting and the LP-2 for the area is KKYX 680 AM, owned by the Cox Broadcasting Group, both, major radio corporations. In the plan, both of these stations monitor the Texas State Network and the National Weather Service from San Marcos, WXK-67 (162.55 mHz VHF) as EAS sources [2003 #83]. In an interview conducted by this researcher with National Weather Service officials from San Marcos, to determine if an EAS was initiated from NOAA, Bill Runyon NWS forecaster stated that, "No we did not issue a CEM, Civil Emergency Message or Chemical Emergency Message and we do not issue those ourselves unless asked to by the community. The community never asked us to do so, they have to request that they issue such a statement. They also want forecasts for dispersal purposes, and evaluation. I would assume that they contacted us for that but I am not sure" (Runyon B. 2004).
To further confirm that no EAS was issued for the Macdona, Texas derailment, this researcher conducted a telephone survey of stations within the region that would have carried this alert which included the Local Primary 1 (LP1) (WOAI) and Local Primary 2 (LP2) (KKYX) (Appendix I, Macdona, Texas Derailment Station Survey provides details of this study) (Mustoe M. 13 July 2004). Ten stations were chosen that fell within a 25 mile radius of Macdona, Texas (Theodric Technologies LLC 2004). Although it was found that many of these stations interrupted regular programming to make an announcement that the derailment had occurred, none of the stations, including the LP1 (WOAI) and the LP2 (KKYK) reported having received an EAS actuation related to the Macdona, Texas derailment originating from either the NWS or an ENDEC system from emergency services within the area . In one instance (WOAI LP1) police scanner traffic provided the news department with initial indication that the derailment had occurred. The LP2 KKYK also carried news of the event.

MINOT AND SAN ANTONIO FINDINGS

             Market Similarities Although both of these cities differ considerably in population, both share commonalties with respect to the challenge of initiating the EAS in this similar situation; a train derailment and subsequent release of hazardous materials. The radio markets in both cities are dominated by corporately controlled radio stations. Furthermore, the local primary EAS stations in both cities are operated by corporate entities, Clear Channel Broadcasting and the Cox Radio Group. In particular Clear Channel Broadcasting, owns both KCJB, Minot, and WOAI in San Antonio.
In both the Minot and San Antonio derailments the EAS system was not actuated. Both systems are identical in operation. In the case of KCJB, the primary station in Minot, there was no digital/electronic outside actuation of its EAS system by an official source of actuation, and in the case of WOAI and KKYX, the LP1 and LP2 respectfully, in San Antonio there was also no digital/electronic outside actuation of their EAS systems by an official source of actuation.
In both Minot and San Antonio, the corporately owned primary EAS stations maintain news departments. In both cities these stations responded to each emergency by supplementing its programming with special news reports, news breaks, and other sources of information derived from their news departments.
In both Minot and San Antonio, it was found that computer controlled, unattended stations also exist with the capability of providing an EAS which, in both cases were not activated because of no digital/electronic outside actuation of their EAS systems by an official source of actuation. All of these stations were owned by corporate sources.

Did the EAS Work Within the Realm of the New Localism?

              Minot the quintessential example of the demise of localism?  Did the EAS Work Within the Realm of the New Localism? The derailment in Minot, North Dakota has been used as a primary example of how the EAS system should fail as a consequence of the EAS being delivered by corporately controlled radio (Anonymous 2004) (Staples B. 2003) (Woosley L. 2003). Lee shows how in particular Clear Channel Broadcasting has coalesced this issue in Minot:

"As the Federal Communications Commissions reconsiders media ownership rules for television and newspapers, many are examining the effects of the radio industry's consolidation, speeded by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Opponents may try to drive the debate over media consolidation to the edges. Minot is one of those edges. Clear Channel's stronghold in Minot has become a political lightning rod. In January 2002, a train derailment at 1 a.m. spilled a vast white cloud of suffocating anhydrous ammonia fertilizer over Minot. One person died" (Lee J. 2003).

It is suggested that the company, Clear Channel Communications has become ..."the poster child for critics of media concentration" (Shields T. 2003). In a study conducted by Cornell University dealing with corporate broadcasting and in particular the operations of Clear Channel Communications Incorporated, it was stated of the Clear Channel's operation in Minot: "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" (Figueroa M., R. et al. 2004).

            Corporate Radio in Minot The Federal Communications Commission, since the time of the derailment has not found Clear Channel's radio stations in Minot in violation of any of the requirements for maintaining EAS monitors. The station's EAS system was working at the time of the derailment (Stensby R. 2004). Furthermore as a corporate entity, Clear Channel did not buy up independent stations in Minot. Merli reports that by 1998 "two-thirds of all stations 65.3% in Arbitron rated markets are consolidated duopolies or superduopolies. ("A superduopoly is a combination of three or more AMs or three or more FMs that are co-owned and serving the same market" (Merli J. 1998). There was Corporate Radio in Minot before Clear Channel. Stensby, who worked in the Minot market before the Clear Channel take over, and was manager of one of the duopolies Clear Channel took over stated that, two local duopolies (Zier J. 1994) containing three stations a piece and owned by two separate corporations, (Reiten and Roberts Broadcasting) were ultimately purchased by Clear Channel. In addition the EAS monitors located at all six of the stations presently owned by Clear Channel in Minot, were in place before the buy out of these other radio corporations and evidence to the proper operation of these EAS has been observed since 1997 (Stensby R. 2004). Former operations manager for the Reiten radio group, Jay Davis suggests:

"At the time EAS was installed KYYX FM was manned, but what what had happened, a year or so later, maybe 1999, KYYX went unmanned in the evening, and KCJB went full staffed. But still the EAS receiver stayed in the KYYX studio. The EAS system when it was installed in Reiten broadcasting, from the very beginning was essentially three radio stations sharing one EAS receiver transmitter, Now, KCJB, the LP1, at the time, was unattended at night. It was simulcasting with KYYX, it's sister station. So what they did was, put the EAS receiver transmitter in the KYYX studio, even though KCJB was the LP1. In all actuality, the KCJB operator wasn't the one firing off the EAS, the KYYX operator was the one. It happened to go over the KCJB airwaves but it was in a studio apart, and that is a common thing also because they are so expensive, that a lot of these 'trombos' and dual stations share their receiver, there was nothing wrong with that at all" (Davis J. 2004).

Staples suggests that, "When a media giant swallows a station, it typically fires the staff and pipes in music along with something that resembles news via satellite" (Staples B. 2003). However according to Stensby when Clear Channel Broadcasting, (a media giant) took over the two local duopolies (local media giants) very little change incurred:

"When Clear Channel bought the stations, the three that I managed going into the deal were all run by computer over night. The other three, two had computers and one had a live announcer, KCJB. When I took all six stations over to manage them for CLear Channel, I was never mandated to change any of that, and I didn't, I didn't add but did not subtract from the operations of these stations. This is a very small community, we had a good overnight operator and he watched over the KCJB and the rest are music stations, they run music" (Stensby R. 2004).

Former owner of the Reiten broadcasting group Chester Reiten, who sold the stations to Clear Channel, suggests that "...the stations basically run the same programming, but they seem to have lapses more often and there are fewer people" (Reiten C. 2004).

Could an activation of the KCJB.studio EAS have taken place that morning?

      The finding of this research suggests that in the corporate radio environment of both Minot, North Dakota and San Antonio, Texas, on the side of the radio stations, run by these corporations, the electronic condition of the EAS system was operational. It was the inadequacy of EAS actuation process by agencies taking full advantage of integrating the digital capabilities of the EAS into their emergency messaging system and the human interface between radio stations and local EAS actuators that created the problem. The operational philosophies of deregulation and corporate broadcast economies of scale had little impact on these two situations.

"The issue is radio stations have no control of who puts out an EAS and who doesn't. People who run those entities make that decision. There is no black and white of what is an EAS. National Weather Service puts out a tornado warning, they have determined that when an event reaches a certain level, we're going to put it out as an EAS, they hit the switch, and all my stations immediately start broadcasting [2004 #363].

In their report of 2002, The National Transporation board stated that:

"Since the accident, the Minot Police Department has conducted meetings with the local telecommunications media to determine how the Minot Police Department (as the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP)) can make faster contact with their respective organizations. According to the Minot Police Department, Minot Central Dispatch now has the phone numbers of key media staff of all Minot area stations. Additionally, the over-night person at KCJB-AM radio now carries a phone and an emergency broadcast system (EBS) pager so that the dispatchers can make immediate contact to six of the seven radio stations in Minot by making one call. Midcontinent Communications has updated the software to the cable interrupt system and are currently attempting to correct some on-going problems with the software. Minot Central Dispatch now has a contact number with the primary state emergency television station (KFYR) in Bismarck, ND. If the local emergency television station (KMOT) is off the air the dispatcher can call Bismarck and request an emergency message be aired through this network (KFYR). The emergency message can also be transmitted through the National Weather Service located in Bismarck, ND using the National Warning System (NAWAS) phone, or the Emergency Alert System (EAS)" (Kris J., R. et al. 2002 p.24),

         A critical aspect of this statement refers to an understanding of the inherent technical nature of the EAS. With the new EAS system operators at Minot Central Dispatch had at least two alternative existing EAS access points available to them on the morning of the accident. First, a civil emergency message (CEM) could of been issued by calling the (24 hour) telephone number of the National Weather Service in Bismarck, North Dakota. The National Weather Service which is an input monitoring source on the EAS box at KCJB, would of then activated the EAS through the LP1 (KCJB) and in-turn the stations that monitor KCJB. Secondly, an EAS activation could of been initiated by contacting KFYR television in Bismarck. In-turn KFYR would feed this message via its access to the network to stations such as KMOT In contrast, if endec capabilities would have been in place at the time of the accident, operators at Minot Central Dispatch could have directly accessed the local EAS boxes at KCJB from their offices, bypassing telephone conversations all together.

         As this research emerged an additional derailment occurred in January 2005 at Graniteville, South Carolina. In this incident tank were breached closed to the city of Graniteville which forced the evaluation of five thousand people. Nine people died in the incident and 500 were sent to hospital. An evaluation of this event was conducted by this researcher using the same approach as was taken in evluating the Macdona, Texas derailment. An overview of the Graniteville, SC derailment is given in Appendix IV and a contrast and comparison of this event with the Minot and Macdona derailments is given in the conclusions of this paper.

This research now considers the EAS and localism (its electronic and human components) in the context of specific problems reported in an EAS state by state survey produced by the Media Security and Reliability Council (Media Security and Reliability Council 2003).