Dennis Thompson
Is it safe to breathe? Yes, but not too deeply. As of this writing the Rough fire, which has burned more than 141,000 acres over the last six weeks, is now 67 percent contained. The number of firefighters working to control the blaze have decreased by about 1500 (to a little over 2000) to address newer more threatening fires in Northern California. Add to the smoke an 8.3 magnitude earthquake in Chile bringing Tsunami advisories to the coast of California and the impending predicted El Nino and one might wonder if the current EAS system can handle the potential volume of information. On September 10th a meeting was held at the Clovis HomeTown Buffet to discuss updates and revisions to the current San Joaquin Valley Local Area EAS plan from March of 2003. In attendance was the newest addition to the Hanford NWS, Meteorologist, Kevin Lynott. Kevin will be checking on the possibilities that the Hanford NWS could become the LP2 for SJV replacing KFSN-TV. Other items to be addressed included; making child abduction alerts (AMBER) optional or voluntary, adding IPAWS to be a must carry, checking and updating names and phone numbers from the 2003 plan, and determining if KMJ or another station would be able to originate monthly alerts. It was also suggested that a twice annual review of the EAS be included as part of the SBE meeting agenda. If you have EAS update/revision information please contact SBE Chairman Ken Holden at: ken9@pipeline.com
Did I mention that you’ll want to be at this months meeting as our ‘presenter’ will be handing out FREE samples. Check out all the information H E R E and I hope to see you there.
