Introduction
In both the Minot, North Dakota and Macdonna, Texas derailments cooperation with and access to EAS initiators (radio station personnel and other governmental groups that initiate EAS such as the NWS) and suppliers were an issue. In the context of localism two parameters are evident: first cooperation between emergency managers and radio stations at the local level. Next, the approriate use of and training in EAS technology.

           In Minot, the station at issue, KCJB, is considered the primary station in that region. Thus, emergency messages would begin at KCJB and in turn the station would relay these to those other stations in the monitoring chain. However, the derailment incident itself did not effect areas beyond, Minot that would include stations that would have carried the EAS alert if it would of been supplied. This suggests that a local emergency messaging system, if it were activated, would serve the affected area adequately but the EAS system in this case would still alert people not in the affected area.

           Alerting the public to a incident with a definely local character such as a derialment (i.e. distribution of a gas plume) presents a problem. In the small community Macdona Texas, there are no radio stations. LP1 and LP2 that would serve that area are found in the larger nearby city San Antonio (no more than ten miles away). An EAS activation in San Antonio on a station such as WOAI, on an derailment event south of the city would inadvertantly alert thousands of people all over West Texas. Conversely, in Minot, North Dakota, a market with a fraction of the size of the population of the San Antonio market, this message distribution problem is solved the same way; the alert is initiated at a local or regional government source and supplied to local primary stations and in turn sent down the EAS monitoring network.

             If EAS would have been activated in the Macdonna event, a message would have first been sent to the National Weather Service in New Braunfels, Texas (nearly 40 miles northeast of the event) and from this point a warning would been set out via NOAA weather radio, one of the sources that local primary stations in the San Antonio EAS plan monitor. An alternative to this would be for emergency managers to directly contact via telephone a staff member of the radio station(s) in the area and ask them to activate the EAS (if they have the capability of this) or at the least read an emergency statement live over the air. None of these recourses were taken in San Antonio, and not until much later into the event were radio stations engaged in distributing emergency messages in the Minot event. Stations in San Antonio picked up on the Macdona derailment via scanner traffic that their news personnel were monitoring.

             A local alternative to manual (calling telephone numbers) and remote activation by the NWS or some other radio linked source in the chain is activation by a local encoder/decoder (endec) system. An endec, is the technology which can augment the new EAS and provide an immediate local link from radio stations to local emergency agencies. The endec can "...receive commands either directly from the source of the emergency information, or from a web of other broadcasters in your area that will relay the information from the primary source (Sage Systems 2004). At the local level these endecs can be stationed with officials of the emergency management system within a county or city. Endec systems were not used during the Minot, North Dakota or the Macdona, Texas events. Since the derailment of 2003 the Ward county, North Dakota dispatch office now has the capability of interupting KCJB radio in Minot. Although this station is the local primary EAS station in the region and in turn would relay an endeced message from local authorities, a station need not be a local primary station to receive a endeced message from a local emergecy messaging source.

Rationale for this Survey
The purpose of this survey is to gain insight into the use of endec systems amongst radio stations in communities of the appoximate size of Minot, North Dakota (35,617).

Selection of the Sample
Cities were selected using ArcView 3.5 GIS software. First, a range of population was determined that represented the model city of Minot. This range was found to be 34038 to 36567 based on the cities found in the data base software. These cities were further selected out with the GIS software by deliniating those cities close to railroad transportation lines.

          Of the initial sort, it was determined that many of the cities had no radio stations. Initially the approach was to select only cities that contained LP1 or LP2 stations but this idea was revised since the vast majority of cities within this population range were comprised of stations that were monitoring type stations only. WIthin the 30,000 population range eighteen stations were selected. To provide a set of stations for comparison to these stations an additional 15 stations were randomly chosen from outside of the 30,000 population base. These stations ranged from 2,000 to 203,000 in population. A total of 33 stations were selected for sampling. Ultimately data from 27 stations was collected.

Survey Method
After the radio stations were selected, telephone numbers were deternmined for each of the stations. Each station was called and a request was made to speak with the engineer of the station or someone knowledgeable about the operation of the EAS system at the station. A deliberate attempt was made to contact each selected station by making mutiple calls to the station and leaving messages at the station if the initial contact was not successful. In six of the 33 stations sampled contacts were not suceessful. This was due to a variety of reasons; first, the station listed was closed and no longer operating, next, the station would not respond to the inquery by the researcher, and finally the station refused to speak with the researcher.

         Upon reaching an individual knoweldgeable about the EAS at the station, the following questions were asked:

What is the station's position in the State EAS Plan?
What EAS Sources do you monitor?
Are you a duopoly?
Are you fully automated at night or any time of the day?
Does your county OEM have ENDEC capabilities?
Do you have any comments about the operation of the system at your station and in your state?

Explaining the Questions What is the station's position in the State EAS Plan? This question determined if the station was an LP1 or monitoring station and how the station fit into the state plan.

          What EAS Sources do you monitor? This question provided information on what was being listened to. In some cases LP1 and monitoring stations were in the same building. This question also provided insight into how many stations were using the National Weather Service as a source.
Are you a duopoly? This question was defined to the participant being interviewed by adding the clause: "such as a cluster or corporate radio station that owns more than an AM and FM outlet.
Are you fully automated at night or any time of the day? If the participant answered yes to this question, an additional direction of questioning was employed. This direction included when was the station automated and was the station attended at that time.
Does your county or city or local office of emergency management have endec capabilities into your station? Unless the participant did not understand what an endec was, how to respond to this question was generally clear. However, if clarrification was needed, a clause stating: endec capabilities meant that the control of the station could be given over via an endec system operatational from a local autherized emergency message originator such as the local sheriff, police department or OEM.
Do you have any comments about the operation of the system at your station and in your state? This provided time for the participant who wanted to comment on the operation of the EAS or elaborate on any of their responses. Although, as the question series progressed duringthe interview, many participants elaborated and discussed their answers in detail.

FINDINGS
Summary Data
33 Stations were selected
6 of the total 33 stations were not available for comment
15 stations fell within a population of 30,000
3 of the 15 stations with 30,000 population did not respond
In total 27 stations were contacted and interviews were conducted with personnel from these stations.

These stations ranged in population from 2,526 to 70,480 One of the stations in the 30,000 group was found to be a Low Power Station FM station.

Questions and Responses
What is the station's position in the State EAS Plan?
Of the 15 stations in the 30,000 base population:
3 of the 18 (30,000 population stations) were LP1
15 were monitoring stations only

5 of the 27 stations were LP1s
22 of the 27 stations were assigned as monitoring stations only

Are you a duopoly?
Of the 15 stations in the 30,000 base population
1 station was independently owned
14 were associated with a duopoly or cluster

23 of the 27 stations were associated with a duopoly or cluster
4 of the 27 stations were independently owned

How many EAS Sources do you monitor (and what are they)?
Of the 27 stations:
5 reported at least one monitoring assignment
6 reported two monitoring assignments
13 reported three monitoring assignments
2 reported more than three monitoring assignments
1 reported that they did not know
3 reported that they have the potential to monitor themselves
1 reported a cable TV for a the sole assignment source

           Of the 15 stations in the 30,000 base population:
2 reported at least one monitoring assignment
3 reported two monitoring assignments
7 reported three monitoring assignments
2 reported four monitoring assignments
1 did not know

            Note: 3 stations of the 15 reported that they have the potential to monitor themselves. 1 station outside the 15 group monitors itself.
1 reported a cable TV for a the sole assignment source

Are you fully automated at night or any time of the day?
Of the 15 stations in the 30,000 base population
          All 15 stations used some form of automation
          4 stations reported 24 hours of automated service
1 station reported 18 hours of automated service
13 stations reported night time automated service

                     Of the 27 stations surveyed:
26 of the stations used automation at some time of the day
3 stations reported 24 hours of automated service
1 station reported 18 hours of automated service
1 station reported 16 hours of automated service
21 stations reported night time automated service
1 station reported no automation

Of the 27 stations surveyed that used some form of automation (26 stations total):
4 stations reported that during their time of automated service their station is attended
22 stations were unattended during service by automation
Of the 15 stations in the 30,000 population base:
4 stations reported that during their time of automated service their station is attended
11 of these stations were unattended during service by automation

Does your county OEM have ENDEC capabilities into your station?
Of the 15 stations in the 30,000 population base:
2 stations have endec capabilities
1 did not know
12 stations did not have endec capabilities

                   Of the two stations with ENDEC capability in this group 1 station was an LP1 and the other was a                     monitoring station.
Of the 27 stations surveyed:
21 did not have endec capabilities 77%
1 did not know
5 stations did have endec capabilities

                    Of the six stations reported to be LP1 in the total group three had ENDEC capabilities.
                    The populations of associated with these stations were 42,983, 70,480, 35,420.

Analysis: This statement is characteristic of much of the challenge this researcher encountered while completing these interviews. Initially I would try to interview anyone at the station who might have some information on the operation of the EAS. Usually this would be an engineer or manager. However, in many cases I encountered board operators and others in the over all operation of the station that had very limited knowledge about the operation of the EAS. Earl Welsh, engineer for Clear Channel radio's WBBQ in Augusta, stated that training was an EAS issue at many station in that entry level positions such as board operators might might hire on with very little experience and now, with no license requirement (Welsh E. 2005). Chartland also refers to the "human error" element in EAS operation as a result of limited training (Chartrand S. 1993). The MSRC also reported similar issues related to the complexity of the system in their 2003 Survey (Media Security and Reliability Council 2003).

This board operators statement is also indicative of the unsettled conditions of station markets. Thirty three stations were ultimately selected for this study. However, six of these stations could not be contacted because the station no longer existed, or was undergoing a forfeiture order by the FCC and was off the air. In addition it was found that amongst these six, some had limited to no means of telephone communications to their listeners. As the problem of communicating with these stations emerged early on in this study it required more adjustment of the sample. Stations had been sold two and three times within the last five years. Call signs had shifted along with the station's community of operation.

Most challenging was the "electronic wall" that was encountered when first contacting these stations. In more than one instance my use of call letters when introducing myself to the switchboard operator was confusing to them because they did not know the legal call letters of the stations where they were working. In contrast they did know the marketing title (i.e."Bee 103") of the station(s) for which they were working. Eighty five percent of these stations were owned by corporations holding duopoly or cluster type status so it was not uncommon in the midst of collecting data to encounter a switchboard operator answering for more than three stations. This high concentration of corporate owned stations is not unusual even for smaller markets (Davidson P. 2003) (Anonymous 2004).

Analysis: This local (regionally owned) cluster is following along the lines of emergency broadcast programming found during the Madonna, TX derailment. WOAI, a Clear Channel station and other stations in the San Antonio area did not receive EAS actuation on the situation and conversely handled the event themselves by monitoring local police scanner traffic. As Dunaway points out, local stations that can operate live, can facilitate emergency messages at the local level much faster than by waiting for the actuation of an EAS. In addition, this live coverage of an event can produce listeners. Dunaway also suggests that localism, the ability for a station to identify itself with its community of operation, is an important component of emergency and overall programming. Stations such as KPQ rely on this method of promoting this programming character. Dunaway also recognizes the local perception problem with stations, especially clusters. He feels that market forces such as satellite radio which delivers programming that is inherently not local, is forcing traditional radio stations to reconsider their local character and how they can incorporate this as part of their competitive strategies.

3. Pat Kohs, Program Director, KCHS Truth or Consequence, New Mexico, 4 February 2005
"At this time there is no endec into our station. We've talked to them (the county emergency services) about that and they said that's a good idea but they don't want to spend the money. We have a little black and white television and put the signal from the station we monitor into the EAS box. Then whatever we get from KOB we run a ticket on it and do a pass through. The problem we have mostly is our pass through to Las Cruces and they'll come back on us saying that were not generating a pass through and we'll say yes we are here is the tickets and everything we are doing it right; Las Cruces, they're the ones that really don't care if they get it or not. The federal government has jumped all over their case down there saying that look, this is mandated. I guess they got fined down there for that. No radio station down there even have generators, should they go off the air. We're mandated by FEMA about five years ago as the emergency broadcast station for Sierra County and as such we worked out a contract with the city and county of Sierra that a generator would be provided by the city and the county would pay to have it done. The city gave us a five k generator that wouldn't even turn on the front porch light to the studio let alone the station. So the county stepped up to the plate basically and said we'll loan you the city of Arrey fire department's generator until such time that the city gets a generator. Well, it's been four years that we've had that generator. We've been through hell with the Arrey fire department threatening to come up and take that generator if they want and the county manager saying no, it will stay there, its a running battle; the city suppose to provide the generator and have yet to so so.

Analysis: A major issue with broadcasters, especially small independent stations is the unfunded mandate of EAS. In an interview this researcher had with Everett Helm, the state EAS relay network coordinator for the Oregon Public Broadcasting system said, with the onset of EAS".... there were a lot of mom and pop radio stations, hard to find now, complaining about the expense of a buying a box, which the government is forcing you to do"(Helm E. 2004). Funding was also cited as an issue for broadcasters in the Media Security and Reliability Council 2003 survey: "Funding. Funding..... Currently all non-federal EAS alerting is voluntary, this is a matter that continues to distress the credibility of the entire EAS. Volunteers on all committees. It is getting very hard to find dedicated people to participate with system implementation" (Media Security and Reliability Council 2003).
If a station is serious about taking on the roll of an emergency broadcaster for their region, it is basically up to the station to find funding. At the minimal level it is mandated by law that the station must have an EAS box at their station. However, as far as the costs of reinforcing the system at the station level, that onus lies in the hands of station management. A generator to stay on the air is at best a minimal requirement to full commitment. At the 2005 National Association of Broadcasters State leadership conference in Washington D.C., the MSRC provided radio broadcasters with their Local Radio Station Vulnerability Assessment checklist (Media Security and Reliability Council 2004). The checklist is derived from their "best practices checklist" (Media Security and Reliability Council Prevention Task Force 2004). The recommendations set forth in this document are idealistic at most, for radio stations in the market sizes surveyed in this study. However the document does set a model of what a station's responsibility might be in fully reinforcing their facility. Some of these responsibilities suggest broadcasters:

"Provide physical security for their stations with security personnel, utilize diverse power grids sources and backup power, news departments should have "robust and redundant ways" to communicate with outside news services, their should be back up signal feeds to receiver sites, they should have access to backup studios and remote vehicles with remote feed capabilities, they should have back up satellite transmitters and receivers or an "alternate means (e.g., a Satellite Radio receiver, a dedicated phone line or a streaming audio internet connection) to send and receive signals from and to national news services in emergency situations." They should have back up transmitters and make "practical arrangements for geographic diversity where possible (e.g., provisions for emergency use of other backup transmitter/antenna facilities in the community or other means.)" "With the cooperation of federal and local policy makers, all radio broadcasters in a market should collaborate to increase their collective site diversity and redundancy, including their collective news studios, operations, satellite transmit and receive facilities and transmitter and antenna sites"(Media Security and Reliability Council 2004).

Pat Kohs attempt at KCHS to work with local officials and the challenges the station faces to attenuate its vulnerability is not uncommon to small market radio station. Even in larger markets cooperation and coordination between local officials and broadcasters is crucial. During the Macdona, Texas derailment (Associated Press 2004) the lack of cooperation between local officials and broadcasters had the effect shutting off the dissemination of emergency messaging through the EAS, and forced broadcasters to rely on their best interpretation of scanner traffic. In the Minot, North Dakota derailment this study found that communications between local emergency agencies and local radio station KCJB contributed greatly to the inability of the emergency messaging system to work properly during that crisis.

Likewise Harley Drew, news director of WBBQ, responding to Grainteville, South Carolina derailment and the lag time it took to get an EAS actuation on the air (about 2 hours after the incident occurred) (National Transportation Safety Board 2005) states, "EAS in my opinion, continues to be basically ineffective and needs another overhaul. I was Area 7 Chairman years ago and tried and tried to make it effective, but could never get the cooperation of local and state officials to make it what it should be (Drew H. 2005).

4. Mike Gilbert Chief Engineer KARI Blaine, Washington 4 February 2005
"The county does have (endec) capabilities to activate the system but their not trained and they do not do it right. Every time they do it's a problem. What they do here is to go into the LP1 and trip it from that location. All the endec transmissions are pre-set at two minutes so they have to say what they are going to say in two minutes or they are done. But what is really sad though is that every time they trip it, the audio is pretty poor and some times they forget to do the EOM (end of message) and then we have dead air for awhile and that is everyone that is monitoring from the county. Under EAS, the stations that are even on auto forward they can pre-program to select what messages they will or will not bring forward. Under the regulations by the federal government, the only message that you have to carry is the message from Washington D.C. the rest of them you can ignore.

          The system is flawed from the very beginning. Unfortunately in its design it is up to the individual broadcasters to do the best that they can and still serve their audience and try to carry as much information as possible. Also, in Washington and elsewhere, not all counties have a department of emergency management and in those counties that don't it falls upon the local sheriff to take care of it. We get the Amber alerts quite a bit, we get the weather, we do filter it quite a bit so that we don't just air anything. But if they send an Amber or if they send an actual weather warning in regards to bad weather we'll air it. We're located in Blaine, Washington which is on a bay and a port and plus we service almost all of British Columbia and that's who most of our customers are, Northern Canada, our signal is going north. We do not have a news department, we are a small radio station most of the stations in our group are basically small radio stations doing brokerage type broadcasting. AM is basically going that way and more and more of the chains are going that way."

Analysis: Even though an endec system is in place for Whatcom County, Gilbert confirms that training at the county level is an issue that effects all the stations in the chain starting with the LP1. Technical problems associated with the signaling capabilities of the equipment also are evident. He also alludes to the only required responsibility of broadcasters, that is, to carry the presidential messages (and the EAS test). Gilbert suggests that carrying large loads of emergency messages forces stations such as KARI to filter EAS actuations and air only those incoming messages that are of a critical nature.

5. Duane Williams Owner/Manager KLCB Libby Montana 4 February 2005
" Because of problems that go back to almost thirty years, the system does not function the way its designed. The primary entry point of the state, we can't receive. What we've done over the years with the FCC's blessing is we actually monitor KCFW television out of Kalispell. Montana. It gets convoluted because KCFW is actually satellite operated out of Missoula. So what happens is KECI Missoula originates a test, it comes up the valley to KCFW in Kalispell, goes back down to Missoula on Microwave, sent up to the transmitter site at Black Tail transmitter site near Kalispell, we pick it off the air on a cable system and bring it in and that's how we get it. KCFW is a satellite remote controlled signal from KECI in Missoula. KECI is feeding that signal to about seven different counties in northwest Montana and parts of Idaho. That is our only source for EAS and everything else is either unreliable or spotty.
The Montana Broadcasters Association is working as a state organization to get this up on a satellite so that we have a signal drop to everybody. Honestly, the system has not functioned since the day it was put in. On a local level we use a simple telephone tree. We have dealt with forest fires and floods, no derailments, than goodness. It's a simple telephone tree that the sheriff's office has which includes our fax number, our business line, our cell phone numbers my home phone number. From the time they would call me at home, it's three minutes to air. We can move that quickly. Early on when EAS first replaced EBS, the local emergency management people here were going to put in an encoder in every fire truck and police car in the county. You can imagine what kind of chaos that would of been. So we decided, that the telephone was the best way.
KLCB is an LP1 and our FM is an so we are monitoring ourself. I think operationally if we had a local emergency, such as the forest fires coming within a few miles from town, and floods in town, on a local level we work very well. The old old cold war model we probably have some problems with. The injection is horrible, there is no way to tell if you are going to get one of these things. The chief meteorologist in Missoula and I for years have been trying to get the severe weather codes to find its way up here but because of the convoluted route it has to take, it doesn't work.
With the option for the local licensee to either make the call or don't make the call to actuate or not, in the rules if you activate then you have to go non-commercial. You can still continue your normal operations and keep doing what you do. In a case like ours and in other micro markets, if something is going bad, the community's first instinct is, go to the station. So you don't have to activate EAS and send everybody into a total panic. We are one of the few micro market stations that has a full time local news operation, where we have people on the street keeping track of what's going on. Maybe we are an anomaly in that regard. But in our situation, if a train, a Burlington Northern train, came off the track and dumped a chlorine car, we'd know it and know it quickly.

Analysis: The physical geography of Montana inhibits KLCB in receiving a direct signal from a primary station. Thus, the circuitous route, described by Williams, that a test signal must follow , makes the process of receiving a test as much as an issue as perhaps the content of the signal itself. This limiting geographic factor is also cited in the MSRC study with respect to Oregon and the Cascade mountains (Media Security and Reliability Council 2004) and is observed as well in the case of KCHS Truth or Consequence, New Mexico. KCHS also relies on a television monitor to provide EAS test service. Essentially in both these cases the EAS system is working the way the old EBS system was supposed to work by law. "Many of the old EBS networks were linked in a series configuration, This made them prone to single point failure. The main problem with this concept was that the FCC EBS regulations required that only one source be monitored. This meant that the monitoring chain would be broken if just one station failed to forward a message" (Partnership for Public Awareness 2003). In contrast Earl Welsh, Chief Engineer at WBBQ in Augusta suggested that it was the circuitous route of initiating an actuation that slowed the messaging system in the Graniteville South Carolina derailment (Welsh E. 2005). An example previously cited in this research also points to similar complexity in routing patterns in some local and statewide plans in Oregon plan. Oregon Public Radio engineer, Al Steffler refers to the network of relays for the La Grande, Oregon system as a "nightmare".

We maintain the two translators in this area. As OPB we had a waiver from the FCC not to have to carry EAS but we decided to do so so as to provide some public service Stations here are all remote, no one is there so there is no way to get quick verification of the operation and no local insertion capabilities. If the local sheriff needed to get a message out there would be no way to do it. Ironically the technology is set up so that by itself its great, if no one is there to say, well I just received this and so now I'll put it off for another fifteen minutes. The automation automatically works if you have it set that way. On the other hand we monitor OPB via microwave on 89.9 which originated from Portland, in that case we get everything that is going on in Portland hundreds of miles away. This system is a nightmare. (Steffler A. 2004).

Williams reports that emergencies at the local level have been successfully handled by KLCB by incorporating their news department and maintaining close contact with local authorities. Encoders are not needed in Libby, Montana because telephones are used. J. Davis, operations manager for KBTO Bottineau, North Dakota also states that the geographic position in his state prohibits good reception of the LP1 and that a telephone call in system with local authorities is used to supplement the regional system providing more local coverage (Davis J. 2004).

6. Winn Boedekerk, Engineer, KJTV Radio Lubbock, Texas 28 January 2005
"We have had trouble because no one in this area wants to monitor the designated LP1. EAS is mostly a non talked about subject. We just do what we are required to do by the FCC and that's it. We run a weekly and monthly test, no one talks about it, it's kind of a headache. We are so swamped and overworked as it is right now we just don't have time to work with it. The emergency management people down town have got some stuff set up but we are really not a part of that."

Analysis: The EAS use strategy of KJTV is simply to maintain its use at its least obtrusive level.

7. Ken Wolf, Chief Engineer KQRC-FM Leavenworth, Kansas
"I have talked to the National Weather Service a couple of times about the way they give alerts per every county. We monitor them and as a thunderstorm rolls through a county I don't think they should be setting the emergency alert system off every time it rolls to a new county. The emergency alert system wasn't specifically designed around weather but that seems but that seems what we are using it for more and I think it is kind of de-tuning people to it. I think people are getting tired of hearing the tones all the time. Missouri and Kansas has a ways to go with the system but they are working on it."

Analysis: Ken Wolf at KQRC suggests that people are tiring of hearing the alert tones of the EAS going off for every storm. Essentially the same thing has been said about tones used in the EBS (McConnel C. 1994). "Long, obnoxious EBS tones used in the weekly tests served to drive listeners away to other stations" (State of California EAS 2002). Even in the region KQRC serves which is prone to tornadic storms, Wolf states that people are becoming desensitized to what these tones mean.

8. Mike Ripley Owner KOZE Lewiston, Idaho 29 November 2004
"I could go on an on about this. I think its a joke. They try to profess that the state of Idaho is connected together but I don't see where it is. I have been in this business for over forty years, I go back to the old CONELRAD days, EBS, and whatever was between CONELRAD and EBS, and EAS, it's always been about a joke. I am not sure if really, other than being able to go through the Spokane County Sheriff's office and being able to active something if it would work or not. I don't know. I try to serve Nez Perce and a few counties in Idaho and a couple in Washington, I get tests for weird places in the state of Washington.
But the biggest problem is turn over of people who are suppose to know what's going with this thing, like in the sheriffs office in Spokane. I am on the spokane list serve, I transmit weekly tests and I usually get two tests a week from the weather service, I get usually a test once a week from KRLC and one test a week from KHQ. Until they can get all the cable channels and everything all tied into this deal, I don't know who they are fooling? Especially when you go to automated radio.

No body will stand up and take accountability for this thing. It started out we are supposed to be able to get a national emergency from the White House, that's the whole premise of EAS. Nintynine point nine percent of the emergencies are weather emergencies. And even then the weather service abuses it because they've got their self importance about thunderstorms and such. I could go on and on about this, but I am an old dinosaur and we are ruining the radio business. It's not a business, they are chasing people away. We have someone here at all times. We talk to people, we're interactive, we take requests, we answer the phone, and I answer the phone for every radio station in this market about their weekend events because no body answers their phones. You tell me how we are going to activate and emergency alert? It's a joke. No body will stand up and say the right thing and do the right thing, I have seen these plans start and stop and I have gone to so many meetings over the years, and sit there and listen to some guy or some woman talk and you know its not going anywhere beyond the room and why waste the time. I do think that Spokane county has tried. They've got some TV engineers and stuff up there and they do have these monthly meetings and they try to do the state plan and they try to do the Amber plan but you never know. When you get your required monthly tests there is a real good chance if it comes out of Kootenae County instead of Spokane County, it's going to be screwed up.
This is how stupid it is. When they came out with that deal and you are supposed to run your weekly tests you really don't have to tell people, you just have to test the tone. Why put the tones on the air if you are not telling what you are doing. It makes no sense to me. And no one is going to wake up until the horse is so far down the road you can't even see him from the barn. It is just crazy. I am a dieing breed, It's way past time for me to be gone and its sad. Some day they are going to wake up and find that all these big properties that they spent these millions of dollars for are going to be worthless. Now with an I-Pod that has a transmitter that can transmit music around your house and listen on your headphones, you don't even have to turn on the radio.

Analysis: Mike Ripley expresses the frustrations and challenges of a broadcaster in a small to medium size market. The problems with local and regional emergency coordination (especially near a state line where two state plans are in place) compound the issue brought on by circuitous messaging networks. A similar situation exists with the LP1 and LP2 in the Augusta Georgia market which provides service across the state line into South Carolina (Welsh E. 2005). Ripley's experience with emergency planning committees is insightful and expresses some of the same concerns derived from the interviews conducted by the MSRC (Media Security and Reliability Council 2003). Ripley also suggests that the changing character of community radio plays an important role in how emergency messaging is served to the audience and how radio might be perceived in the future.