MARCH 8, 2005

Present: Terry Spring-KWPX, James Huff-Bates, Marcello Liguori-Bates, Roland Robinson-Bates, Mark Taylor-Bates, Allan Steinberg-Bates, Clay Freinwald-Entercom, Ted Buehner-NWS Seattle, Andy Skotdal-S-R Broadcasting Co., Inc. (KRKO-AM), Jim Tharp-Entercom, Laurel Nelson-King Co. Office of Emergency Management, Mark Allen-WSAB, Greg Thies-KING-TV

Via phone: John Franz-KVOS, Don Miller-WSEM, Bob Wyatt-KSPS, Art Blum-KONA

Introductions were made.

The EAS Summit was discussed. People from Emergency Management, broadcasters, and state EAS chairs were there. The government was represented by the FCC, FEMA, and the National Weather service. Locally, Clay, Don, and Mark attended. Mark thought it went well. They shared their best practices, what works and what doesn't. Improvement of the PEP system by adding stations and satellite delivery is a priority. Things are moving ahead with or with the NRPM that is before the commission. All participants have a lot more information. Another one is being planned for next year.

The mistake in Connecticut was brought up. The accidental state evacuation received a lot of publicity.

The New Jersey SECC publishes a newsletter. That is being considered for here.

The recent remailer failure was discussed. We will stay with Broadcast.net for now, but Jim Tharp is working on a back up system.

Clear Channel Sacramento has put together a comprehensive EAS handbook for their stations. Some state EAS committees have training materials available. If we were to do that here, the materials would have to be very basic because each station is different.

At the Washington State Emergency Management, they are still looking for funding for a tsunami warning system. They would like to install more than 500 sirens and be fed by satellite. Federal or state money is being considered, or a combination of the two. There is legislation pending in Congress for a national system.

NASCIO, the National Association of Chief State Information Officers, has proposed expanding the AMBER system into a national, all-hazards alert system. This would be separate from AMBER and is just in the idea stage.

At the National Weather service, HazCollect would be an internet based system that would also send out information on the weather wire, pagers, PDA's, etc. The disadvantage would be that all information would go through just one organization, unlike the current EAS system. Don Miller expressed concerns about the direction they are heading.

Expanded text transmission was mentioned in the FCC NRPM. Text has always been part of the EAS system, but has never been turned on.

Event codes were discussed. It was brought up that the use for some of them of them may not be obvious to the originating agencies. It was agreed that we need to do something here. It was suggested that we use the National Weather Service Instruction 10-518 as a starting point. See http://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/010/pd01005018c.pdf. Comments are welcome.

Planning is progressing for the new weather radio station up north. It is to be located in Blaine in the northwest corner of Whatcom County. By using a directional antenna the signal into Canada can be minimized. Don is now looking at how to get the programming to Blaine.

The new generation of weather radios were discussed. Some can be programmed with event codes and can display the headers. They can be programmed by areas. They are available on the web from http://www.firstalert.com/index.asp?pageid=37 and other sources.

Mark Allen reported that the periodic review of recent AMBER Alerts is coming up. They also review the alerts that are declined. There is a regional AMBER Meeting in Wyoming in June.

There will, once again, be an EAS meeting at NAB.

In Spokane, The May RMY will coincide with their local duck and cover exercise. There will be a meeting with officials from Idaho and Montana to discuss cross-border EAS messages.

The Portland NWS will be building a system similar to what they have in Seattle to relay EAS messages on the weather radio.

The next meeting will be Tuesday, May 10 at 9:30 AM at Camp Murray.

Terry W. Spring
Chief Engineer
KWPX Seattle