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EDITORIAL: Emergency alert system needs repairs
Oct 21, 2009 (Wyoming Tribune-Eagle - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Just ask any Laramie County official.
The Emergency Alert System is in place here. There are fancy flow charts showing how bulletins are supposed to move through the system. If there's a crisis, just turn on your radio or TV and the information will be there.
Unless there is a power outage.
And then, well, apparently you are on your own.
Such was the experience here last week during a power outage that covered most of Laramie County. Thankfully, at least for Cheyenne residents, the power was out for only about 90 minutes. But some locations in the eastern part of the county were down for 24 hours or more.
What if that had happened in the Capital City? How would the general populace have known what in the heck was going on?
As it turns out, the heart of the alert system here, radio station KFBC-AM (1240) does not have a backup power generator. Officials at the station -- which is the primary reception and distribution point for emergency alerts -- say they are equipped to handle a generator. But they don't own one.
But even if a generator had been up and running at KFBC last week, there is the little matter of the station's transmitter, which is on county property on West Lincolnway. It isn't connected to a generator either. Ooops.
One of the major concerns about emergency operations across the nation is that they fail to put communications with the public high enough on their agendas. There's plenty of time -- and, yes, money -- for fancy mobile centers and cutting-edge equipment like computers, radios, plasma screens, etc. But the basic task of letting people know what is going on? Well ...
Laramie County officials should be red-faced over last week's event. That they were left unable to pass information on to the very people who depend on them for it is not unbelievable -- given the aforementioned history of such things -- but it needs to be fixed, and sooner than ASAP.
This is not something that should wait for weeks, or even months, as too often happens here. It's fall in Wyoming, and another power outage could occur the next time the heavy snow falls.
Someone must find the money for generators at KFBC (or some other radio station) and at the transmitter, and we don't care whether it's Laramie County, the city of Cheyenne or the station, itself, that has to pay for it.
There always seems to be money when government officials here want to get their pet projects accomplished -- and they should want to be able to communicate with residents in an emergency. As they say here in the Cowboy State: Get 'er done.
To see more of Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.wyomingnews.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Cheyenne
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