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Florida will use electronic highway signs to post bulletins on missing kids so motorists can help early in the search.
By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 6, 2002
Within hours of the dramatic rescue of two kidnapped California girls last week, Florida moved to adopt a communication system that proved pivotal in finding the teenagers.
The state soon will begin using a linked system of electronic highway message boards to display information on missing children in the hope that they can be found within the critical first hours of their disappearance.
The message board system, which is being built along the interstates and Florida's Turnpike by the state Department of Transportation, will add the eyes of thousands of motorists to the hunt for missing children.
"We saw that the highway signs were the key to the recovery of those girls in California, and we got excited," said Jennifer McCord, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. "We'll go to any lengths to recover a child in Florida, and we recognized immediately that our highway signs could be a part of the mix."
The original, principal purpose of the message boards is to alert motorists to construction, accidents and bad weather. But if a child is in immediate danger, that alert will take precedence. There is no additional cost associated with the additional use of the signs.
The message boards will add a new facet to the state's 2-year-old Florida Amber program, which so far has used radio and TV bulletins to put out the word on children who have vanished. Since the program's start, there have been 26 alerts resulting in three children being safely recovered.
"The first few hours of an abduction are the most crucial," Gov. Jeb Bush said in making the announcement. "We want information on a missing child to be released to the public as soon as possible to further the chances of a successful recovery."
According to the FDLE, studies indicate that 73 percent of endangered children will not be found alive if they aren't located within three hours.
The law enforcement link to the message boards could be up and running in a matter of days because no additional equipment or staffing is required.
"We have a list of contact points that we make when a child is in danger, and we'll just add DOT as another one," McCord said.
FDLE and DOT are meeting today to figure out the logistics.
"We just got the call from FDLE on Friday," said Dick Kane, the Tallahassee spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation, which is building the sign system. "We want to get involved. Right now we're in the information-gathering stage. But this won't take long."
So far, highway coverage by the signs is spotty across the state.
There are three in Pinellas County, one each on northbound and southbound Interstate 275 and one on eastbound I-175. Currently, they are used primarily to direct traffic to events at Tropicana Field and in downtown St. Petersburg.
No more signs are scheduled for this region until 2006, when they will cover about 30 miles of interstates in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, according to regional DOT spokeswoman Marian Pscion. Additional signs in those counties and in Pasco and Hernando are due on line in 2012.
Statewide, Kane said, there currently are 75 active signs with 35 more in the testing phase. All 110 will be operational by October. The heaviest concentration is in the Orlando area, where there are 24 message boards.
There are 41 Amber programs nationwide, credited with the recovery of 17 children since 1997.
When the two California teens were abducted early Thursday, authorities swiftly issued an Amber Alert, which activated electronic highway signs around the state. They flashed a description of the Ford Bronco taken by the kidnapper and its license plate number, causing backups on Los Angeles highways as drivers slowed down to record the details.
Authorities said they found the kidnapper as he was preparing to kill the two girls and bury their bodies. They shot him to death when he refused to get out of the Bronco.
This was the first time California authorities used the plan, which is named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old who was kidnapped in 1996 and later found dead in Texas.
1. Law enforcement officials alert the Florida Department of Transportation when a child abduction occurs.
2. DOT posts a bulletin on its electronic message boards along state highways.
3. Motorists alert the police if they see the suspect.