Oregon’s First Amber Alert Yields Quick Success, blared headlines in The Oregonian last Thursday. Just 97 minutes after State Police first broadcast an abduction notice over the state-wide emergency alert system, a Klamath County sheriff’s deputy stopped a pickup carrying the 10 year old girl toward California.
The Amber Alert system was put in place to honor Amber Hagerman, an Arlington, Texas, girl who was abducted and killed while riding her bike in 1996. Since then, 39 states have adopted Amber Alert systems. Oregon’s was launched Nov. 15 by executive order of then-Gov. John Kitzhaber.
The Thursday alert was triggered by an “abduction” of a 10-year-old girl from a Redmond, Oregon, gas station. A missing-child alert was broadcast on radio and television and scrolling across highway signs throughout the Northwest. Central Oregon police dispatchers were flooded with calls from 60 separate news organizations.
The girl, unharmed, was returned to her parents Thursday night.
“Circumstances surrounding the reported abduction of Jessica Preciado of Pasco, Wash., by a family friend, remained unclear. The friend, 52-year-old Patricia Cortez, whom the family said they had hired to help them move to California, told police the incident was all a misunderstanding.
Cortez had not been charged with any crimes Thursday night.
‘It’s kind of a strange case,’ said Redmond police Detective Lt. Scott Koertje. ‘Detectives are still plowing through it.’But police and the girl’s parents were ecstatic at how quickly the new statewide emergency system worked after the missing-child alert was broadcast on radio and television and scrolled across highway signs”.
A case of bureaucracy and technology working together for a successful outcome?
Not quite.
The Oregonain ran a follow-up story on Friday:
“A major misunderstanding” led to Oregon’s first Amber Alert broadcast on Thursday…
“The abduction of Jessica Preciado proved to be a false alarm…
While Jessica’s parents were in the restrooms, Cortez decided to drive off in search of cough drops for the girl. Cortez said she then returned to the gas station but Jessica’s parents had left, so she continued driving south on U.S. 97 in hopes of overtaking them…
A Klamath County deputy spotted the truck Cortez was driving near Chiloquin after receiving an all-points-bulletin teletype and stopped Cortez when she turned into a motel parking lot less than two hours after the 12:30 p.m. alert”.
To err is human. The goal of the Amber Alert (and EAS) DOES seem worthwhile and necessary. It just needs a little tweaking.
The Oregon State Emergency Communications Committee has strict
Amber Alert Guidelines.
- The child should be 17 years or younger, or with a proven mental or physical disability.
- Police must believe the child is in danger of serious bodily harm or death.
- There must be enough descriptive information to believe a broadcast will help.
- The activation must be recommended by the local law enforcement agency of Jurisdiction.
The Oregon Broadcast Engineers web site explains that Oregon and Washington are part of Oregon EAS Operational Areas, indicating they are ready for “CAE” Child Abduction Emergency (Amber Alerts). The Oregon State Relay (Oregon Public Broadcasting) is now ready for the EAS CAE event code, “so we won’t be seeing any “CEM” (Civil Emergency Message) alerts for Amber Alerts again”.
The Washington State Police originated the first northwest Amber Alert on February 5th. The Oregon State Police repeated the alert word for word, but used the “Civil Emergency Message” event code instead of “Child Abduction Emergency.” The 3-year old girl had been missing for 14 hours, their was no description of an abductor, and no toll-free numbers were given out.
FCC rules require broadcasters to relay an EAN / EAT (National Alert, President want’s to talk to everybody) and the monthly test (RMT) for your area. All other events are voluntary.
An EAS event includes a header, tones, voice message and EOM (End of Message). The local broadcast unit will automatically switch to the alert and back to programming with the EOM signal. The FCC’s EAS Handbook has more details.
In Portland, Oregon, for example, EAS alerts would be sent from KXL-AM, KGON-FM, NOAA 162.55 and 166.25 SRN.
Kent Randles, Chief Engineer for KGON is the EAS coordinator and explains the system at the Oregon Broadcast Engineers site:
When EAS started on January 1, 1997, 750 KXL became the LP-2, and shortly thereafter 101.1 KUFO became the LP-1. Last year, KXL became the LP-1 and KGON became the LP-2.
John White, K7RUN, put together the Local Area Network (LRN) repeater from used surplus 2-way components, and former Oregon State Emergency Communications Chair and Rose City Radio Director of Engineering Larry Wilson W7IXZ, who wrote the state plan, donated space for it in the KXJM suite at their Stonehenge Tower transmitter site.
Public safety-wise, only two of the five Portland/Vancouver area counties can originate EAS alerts: Clark County, Washington, and Washington County, Oregon. As I write this, only Clark County can originate at a moment’s notice. Alerts are transmitted from those counties through the LRN repeater on Stonehenge Tower and to all the radio and TV stations and cable companies on the Oregon state EAS frequency of 166.25 MHz.
Statewide, the goal is to be able to have Amber Alerts originated from the new Oregon Emergency Management headquarters in Salem through the EAS State Relay system. This will take place early in 2003. See the Oregon State EAS page for more information.
The Eas-wa Archives and Broadcast.net Discussion Groups have the inside dope. Other (mostly) un-related links include:
