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Warning radios given to schools

The Homeland Security Department will equip all public schools with radios that announce weather and other hazards.

By TIMES STAFF and TIMES WIRES
Published September 26, 2006

WASHINGTON - When the squeal from an automated warning radio brought news a severe storm was approaching Endicott, N.Y., school principal William Tomic acted quickly. He alerted teachers to bring children indoors and to a secure interior hallway for shelter.

Minutes later, 70 mph winds ripped the roof off of the kindergarten wing of Charles F. Johnson Elementary School.

No one was hurt, thanks to the warning and the timely response to it. "It really did work very well; we were so pleased with it," Tomic said. "The parents were as well."

Hoping for more such success stories, the government will supply hazard warning radios to all 97,000 public schools in the United States. Also included will be tribal schools and public schools in U.S. territories.

The National Weather Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, operates more than 950 short-range radio stations. It has encouraged schools, business and homeowners to buy warning radios that are activated with a broadcast signal that automatically turns a radio on and announces a potential hazard.

The Homeland Security Department decided to provide $5-million to make sure these radios, which operate 24 hours a day, are in every public school, NOAA administrator Conrad Lautenbacher said.

Six states, including Florida, already mandate the use of the radios in schools.

NOAA said those schools will also be included in the new program to make sure they have the most recent models.

Pinellas County schools had relied on transmitters monitored by school police to detect threatening weather patterns, said Carol Madura, the school district coordinator of emergency management and crisis response.

But the NOAA system covers all hazards, including terrorism, abducted children and derailed trains carrying toxic materials. The radios started arriving last week.

Hillsborough County schools have used hazardous warning radios for decades. The new radios began arriving last week, district spokesman Stephen Hegarty said, so now schools can have two on hand.

"I guess what this will enable us to do is to have one in the principal's office and one in the main office as well," he said.

Lautenbacher said weather experts from local Weather Service offices will be available to assist school officials in determining how best to use the radios.

Typically the radios are smaller than a clock radio, have a battery backup in case of power loss and are sold at electronic and other stores for $20 to $80. Most can be programmed to respond only to warnings for a specific area - a county or city, for example.

Lautenbacher said the NOAA radio system covers about 97 percent of the country with the few gaps in some sparsely populated mountain areas.

Times staff writers Thomas C. Tobin and Letitia Stein contributed to this report, which used information from the Associated Press.

[Last modified September 26, 2006, 00:48:02]