Guest Editorial: Emergency radio station on ballot

The voters of Jefferson County will have the chance to vote on whether to continue and strengthen the Jefferson County DES Emergency Radio Broadcast Service on November 8th. Although I am paid a nominal fee to maintain these stations, I am personally convinced that these stations are extremely important to the community in the case of the next future emergency, and that even considering shutting these stations down when we might need them the most would be a disaster in itself.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) states that “local radio provides the most efficient and cost-effective way to keep Americans safe and informed in times of crisis”. This was certainly proven during hurricane Katrina. The Jefferson County DES Emergency Radio Broadcast System and your battery-operated car radio are the last and best defense against the total loss of communications between Disaster and Emergency Personnel and the general population.

There are seven low power FM transmitters scattered throughout the County that each serve about a 10-mile radius to car radios from the transmitter. Whitehall is at 106.5 FM and Cardwell is at 106.1 FM. These transmitters were installed after the fires of 2000 where there was no way to get local communications out as to what roads were open, closed, etc. During the past years these stations have been used to broadcast many emergency updates regarding forest fires, flooding, a Whitehall water system boil order, and in one case to announce that the 911 system was down in Whitehall .

In non-emergency times the stations provide continuous background music and are used to promote local non-profit events, public service announcements, local community events, disaster preparedness information, school announcements, and the popular live local football and basketball games, both out-of-town and local. These broadcasts help people to know how to find and tune their station during an emergency. These stations give us the capability to communicate to ourselves, have a local identity, and a local radio station.

In my opinion as a communications provider, these stations are increasing in importance to the community because of the increasing intensity of the storms we are receiving due to climate change. Just recently there was a tornado just south of Whitehall and one in nearby Idaho. To me, the winds seem to be increasing in intensity and we can probably expect more and longer power outages in the future because of it. There has also been a swarm of earthquakes near our community and we are definitely located in an earthquake zone and close to a potential supervolcano. Also, we have experienced increased flooding and forest fires in the past several years. Now our town water supply has problems and may require public announcements from time to time. Jefferson County DES has a window of opportunity to strengthen our local Emergency Broadcast System before these increasing calamities further affect our area.

The existing telecommunications systems that we depend on every day such as telephones and cell phones, Internet, computers and particularly social media, are extremely vulnerable to longer power outages. They are also very vulnerable to earthquake shearing of underground fiber optic cables that feed data to these systems. Communities South of Whitehall just recently suffered a major communications disruption due to a severed fiber optic cable resulting in loss of telephones, internet and radio stations to a large area from Twin Bridges to Big Sky and beyond for over six hours. An earthquake sheared cable could take considerably longer to find and fix in the confusion of a real emergency, and could result in telephone, cell tower, Internet, and possibly the 911 system being inoperable for an extended period of time.

Again, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) states that “local radio provides the most efficient and cost-effective way to keep Americans safe and informed in times of crisis”. We need to keep and improve this existing system . We are lucky to have the FCC assigned frequencies we have and would probably never get them again if we shut it down. Please carefully consider supporting this mill levy to give Jefferson County DES the opportunity to continue to operate the system and to strengthen the system for future emergency use. At most this might cost a homeowner in the vicinity of 2 to 6 dollars per year for two years depending on the taxable value of your property. This is a small price to pay for a system that could save lives and reduce confusion in an Emergency.

Please feel free to contact mysel at 287-5308 f or any of the County Commissioners if you have questions.