[BC] Florida to take on the GSS program?

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<http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-mwarning0907feb09,0,7803083.story?coll=orl-home-headlines>http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-mwarning0907feb09,0,7803083.story?coll=orl-home-headlines 




KILLER TORNADOES: THE AFTERMATH




A wake-up call for saving lives




In Mississippi, radio warnings target residents in harm's way

Maya Bell
Sentinel Staff Writer

February 9, 2007

Imagine this: Before last week's devastating tornado touched down on 
Cooter Pond Road in Lake Mack, everybody living near the rural Lake 
County street was jolted awake by a cheap bedside FM receiver that 
signaled the impending danger.

For the state of Mississippi, such a pinpoint warning system is not 
some far-fetched fantasy, but technology now within reach.

Still recovering from 2005's Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi just 
became the first state to unveil a targeted warning system that uses 
existing FM broadcast stations to send mass or personalized alerts 
about an unfolding disaster, all in a matter of seconds.

The digital alerts can be sent to a specially designed $25 FM 
receiver or any device equipped with a standard FM-receiver chip and 
certain software. Today, that includes everything from cell phones 
and iPods, to smoke detectors and vacuum cleaners.

"It's a standard off-the-shelf chip you find in your car radio," said 
Matthew Straeb, executive vice president of Global Security Systems, 
the Mississippi-based company that created that state's First Alert 
System. "They'll ship 300 million of them this year.''

So, it's no surprise that, in the wake of last week's trio of 
pre-dawn tornadoes, Global Security Systems is turning its sights on 
Florida. It's starting by courting FM broadcasters.

Pat Roberts, president of the Florida Association of Broadcasters, 
said he would recommend this month that the association board help 
the company "get their system going'' because it relies "on the most 
stable and widely available platform in the world: FM radio.''

"I'm supportive of multiple ways of warning the public, but I still 
believe in old-timey radio,'' said Roberts, who also chairs the state 
Emergency Communication Committee.

Florida considers options

Florida emergency officials, who are aware of the Mississippi system, 
are less gung-ho, saying the state needs to study all the options.

"Any system is only as good as the participation of everyone 
involved,'' said Mike Stone, a spokesman for the state Division of 
Emergency Management. "For every positive in the continuously 
wireless world, you have negatives.''

Stone, though, agrees that radio remains vital to Florida's warning 
system, particularly personal weather-alert radios, which can be 
programmed to receive all-hazard warnings about a specific county 
from the National Weather Service. They are still the best and most 
cost-effective way of alerting Floridians to tornadoes, he said.

For now, Mississippi's First Alert System is still in its infancy. It 
only allows emergency-management officials near the state capital of 
Jackson to send mass or individualized digital messages from one to 
all 82 of its local emergency-management offices.

The messages are entered into a computer server, then relayed by 
satellite to the transmission stations of about 50 cooperating FM 
stations across the state. Their FM towers in turn broadcast the 
messages to the intended receivers.

The hope, though, is that each of Mississippi's counties will buy 
into the GSS network and install their own $25,000 GSS computer 
server. That would allow local emergency officials to send 
more-localized alerts.

Radio's speed is a plus

Butch Hammack, emergency-management director of Madison County, north 
of Jackson, said Madison likely will adopt the system next month 
because officials there are sold on a key advantage: It is lightning-quick.

"The most appealing part is we can alert our entire county in less 
than 10 seconds,'' Hammack said.

The GSS system would replace a "reverse 911" system that Madison 
County canceled in 2005 because it proved to too slow. When tornadoes 
ripped through the county in November 2004, Hammack said the system 
began dialing its 28,900 households. However, averaging 492 calls a 
minute, it took 70 minutes to compete the task.

"Some people were receiving the alert an hour and a half after the 
weather passed,'' Hammack said. "On a humorous note, I was the one 
running the system, and it never called my home."

Though weather-alert radios send out real-time messages, too, Hammack 
and other fans of the GSS system say the latter has a number of 
advantages. First, the $25 receivers Mississippi just distributed to 
each of its emergency-management offices do not need to be turned on 
for recipients to receive alerts. The devices kick on automatically 
-- as long as the user keeps a fresh pair of AA batteries inside.

With far more FM towers than National Weather Service towers -- about 
350 vs. 30 in Florida -- the chances of an area being left without FM 
coverage during a disaster are far less than the chances of one being 
left without a working weather-service tower. Ditto for cell phones and pagers.

"It's a more foolproof way to ensure constant communication,'' said 
Todd Frier, a spokesman for the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security.

Targeting neighborhoods

Messages sent via the GSS system also can be targeted to every FM 
receiver in a precise neighborhood, or even a subgroup of the 
county's population, such as all insulin users or families with 
babies -- again, as long as the intended audience has a receiver and 
registers it with the county.

Therein lies the biggest drawback. As is the case with weather-alert 
radios, the GSS First Alert System can save lives only if people buy 
the receivers and use them.

"Buying the server is one thing,'' Hammack said. "Getting the 
receivers into the hands of people is another. For some people, even 
$25 is too big of a burden -- until it's too late.''

Maya Bell can be reached at 305-810-5003 or mbell at orlandosentinel.com.