Stranded by trains, planes after Northeast storm

NEW YORK (Profile Facts) — When Angela Madsen was pulled off her plane and her wheelchair stayed on board, she knew she was in for a rough night. The paraplegic athlete struggled to get into the bathrooms at Kennedy Airport. Turning the wheels on her borrowed wheelchair strained her shoulders. Sleeping was impossible.

"I actually got out of it and laid on the floor," Madsen said.

It was, she said, a miserable time — one that was shared by millions of people on Monday, in travails big and small, serious and surreal, after the blizzard of December 2010 sucker-punched the northeastern U.S. during one of the busiest travel days of the year.

Air travel in the nation's busiest airspace nearly shut down, and thousands of stranded passengers turned terminals into open-air hotels while they waited for planes to take off and land on plowed runways. Flights slowly resumed, although experts said it would likely take several days to rebook all the displaced passengers.

A tractor-trailer skidded off a road and smashed into a house in Maine. A woman went into labor on a New Jersey highway, causing a traffic jam that stranded 30 vehicles. Rails on the normally reliable New York subway shorted out. Winds topping 65 mph ripped power lines, leaving tens of thousands of people in the dark across New England.

This storm simply didn't play fair, cold-cocking the Northeast with more than 2 feet of snow on a holiday weekend when everyone seemed to be out of town, groggy with holiday cheer or just unprepared.

In New York, residents outside Manhattan complained of a sluggish response by snow plow crews who still hadn't finished clearing the streets. State Sen. Carl Kruger, a Democrat who represents Brooklyn, called the city's response a "colossal failure." Fire officials said the unplowed streets and abandoned cars made it harder to respond to emergencies, including a five-alarm, wind-whipped blaze at a Queens apartment building Monday night.

A testy Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the city's cleanup effort, saying the crews were being slowed down by abandoned cars on the streets.

"There's no reason for everybody to panic," he said. "Our city is doing exactly what you'd want it to do."

After spending Sunday night tossing and turning on airport floors, thousands of bleary-eyed travelers spent Monday standing in lines, begging for flights, fighting for taxis and hunting for hotel rooms.

The storm wreaked havoc on almost every form of conveyance: from the buses at the nation's busiest terminal near Times Square to the region's usually punctual commuter trains.

Little problems quickly snowballed: On New Jersey's Garden State Parkway, a motorist struggled to find the shoulder of the road after his wife went into labor, causing a traffic jam that eventually stranded 30 vehicles, state trooper Chris Menello said. Among them were two buses full of people returning from Atlantic City.

Two of the New York area's major airports — LaGuardia and Kennedy — began to receive inbound flights on Monday night. Newark Liberty began receiving inbound flights Tuesday morning. Hundreds of flights were canceled at all three airports.

Those two magic words — "on time" — lit up at least half the departure boards early Tuesday at LaGuardia, where passengers stretched out sleeping under blankets along the windowsill of a food court. The airport ran out of cots, 30-year-old Shiv Kumar of Chicago said.

"I hardly slept. It's very uncomfortable — people moving around, cell phones ringing, children crying," Kumar said.

Kumar was on standby for a flight to Chicago after having two flights canceled since Sunday. If he doesn't get out Tuesday, he said, "I'll start driving."

Across the region, the storm's aftermath was punctuated by surreal moments, like the sight of Adrian Traylor, 29, roaming the Newark airport terminal in a kilt and bare legs as subfreezing winds howled outside.

Traylor, who lives in Scotland, was on his way to visit relatives in Las Vegas and said he wore the kilt to impress his family.

"I didn't think I'd be wearing it this long," he said.

In Newport, Maine, 81-year-old Marguerite Fowler and her husband were asleep when an 18-wheeler full of tree bark lost control on an icy road at 2:10 a.m. and obliterated their home's sun room.

"I thought it was a bomb," Fowler said. "We don't need all that excitement at our age."

Christopher Mullen returned from sunny Cancun, Mexico, to find his car buried in the snow in long-term parking at Kennedy Airport. After trying to dig it out and getting soaked in the process, he finally gave up and took the subway — which promptly broke down.

Mullen and his girlfriend spent eight hours in a freezing subway car, shivering under a thin blanket.

The storm, which dumped 20 inches of snow in Central Park Sunday, was New York City's sixth-worst since record-keeping began in 1869, said Adrienne Leptich, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. A February 2006 storm dropped 26.9 inches of snow on Central Park, breaking the previous record, set in 1947, by half an inch.

The storm was sprawling and fickle, dropping 29 inches on Staten Island; 32 on Rahway, N.J.; 10 on Franklin, S.C., about 12 on Philadelphia; and 19 in South Boston but only 6.5 in West Hartford, Conn., according to the Weather Service.

It spared no one, not even men who travel on ice for a living. A bus carrying the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team got stuck in the blizzard for four hours while trying to return to their hotel after a game against the New Jersey Devils. And, members of the U.S. luge team lost two days of training after they were stranded on their way to Koenigssee, Germany.

In Philadelphia, pedestrians dodged chunks of ice blown off skyscrapers. New York taxi driver Shafqat Hayat struggled to get his car moving Monday after spending the night trapped on an unplowed street.

"I've seen a lot of snow before, but on the roads, I've never seen so many cars stuck in 22 years," Hayat said.

Some travelers tried to make the best of it. At the Newark airport, Frank Mann, his son 9-year-old son Stephen and his girlfriend Jackie Douglas said their night on the terminal floor was sort of like taking a camping trip.

They made beds out of luggage trays turned upside down, ate hot dogs from the snack bar and even did some bird-watching: pigeons seeking refuge from the elements were taking baths in puddles of water dripping from the ceiling.

"This airport becomes a whole different place at night," said Mann, a 53-year-old lawyer from Houston.

When things got boring, Stephen pulled out his Kindle to finish a book he had started before getting stranded.

The book was about another youngster stranded far from home by bad weather: L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Hawley reported from Newark, N.J. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Glen Johnson in Haverhill, Mass,; David Sharp in Portland, Maine; Leon Drouin Keith, Sara Kugler Frazier, Samantha Gross, Samantha Henry, Karen Matthews, Adam Pemble and David Porter in New York; Deepti Hajela in Fort Lee, N.J.; George Walsh in Albany, N.Y., and Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, N.J.

(source:ap)

Cold storm moves into Arizona

Cold storm moved through the state Sunday, with record-low temperatures forecast in Phoenix, Flagstaff and Tucson.

Sunshine and higher temperatures are predicted to return Tuesday.

On Sunday, the system was expected to bring down the Valley's toasty temperatures to 60 degrees, much chillier than the average typical highs of the mid- to high 70s.

The record high for March 16 was 99 degrees, and set just last year, when Valley residents were slathering on sunscreen instead of bundling up. On Sunday, the Valley neared the record low-high temperature of 58 degrees, set back in 1952.

"It's pretty cold for this time of year," said Paul Iniguez, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Phoenix.

Scattered showers and snow were expected to fall in the Valley's outlying areas, he said.

Flagstaff on Sunday was forecast to hit 33 degrees, flirting with its 2002 record of 31 degrees. Tucson, meanwhile, was forecast to reach 57 degrees, just shy of its 1987 record of 56 degrees.

Monday's temperatures will be in the lower to mid 60s, Iniguez said. The cold front should move out by Tuesday and temperatures are expected to climb back to the 70s.

By Wednesday, the Valley is predicted to warm up to the 80s, and settle there for the remainder of the workweek.

See also 

National weather service

Eastern Coast Storm Strands Travelers, Vexes Drivers

A couple crosses a snow covered street on the Upper East Side of New York as a major snow storms hits. The blizzard conditions wreaked havoc on travelers from the Carolinas to Maine and forced the suspension of operations at some of the nation's busiest airports.

 December 27, 2010

A treacherous commute of lashing winds, slick streets and low visibility awaited workers returning Monday to their post-Christmas routines as a winter storm that dumped about a foot of snow on southern New England continued crawling up the East Coast, stranding thousands of airline, bus and rail passengers.

The blizzard conditions wreaked havoc on travelers from the Carolinas to Maine and forced the suspension of operations at some of the nation's busiest airports.

Airlines scrambled to rebook passengers on thousands of canceled flights - more than 1,400 out of the New York City area's three major airports alone - but said they didn't expect normal service to resume until Tuesday. Amtrak canceled train service from New York to Maine after doing the same earlier for several trains in Virginia. The nation's largest commuter rail system, New York's Long Island Rail Road, also suspended service. Bus companies canceled routes up and down the East Coast, and drivers faced hazardous travel conditions - sometimes with close to zero visibility.

Emergency room nurse Tiffany Lema, at Newport Hospital in Rhode Island, said her normally 45-minute commute from Cranston, just south of Providence, was an awful two hours, made all the more harrowing when her husband's truck couldn't get up and over the Newport Bridge. They made a U-turn and parked near an E-ZPass electronic toll payment office, where her father-in-law picked her up and drove her the rest of the way.

"I wasn't going to jump out at any point, so we just turned it around. It was kind of scary," said Lema, who planned to spend the night at the hospital with other nurses. "You could see the car in front of you but not over the hill, not over the bridge."

A blizzard warning, which is issued when snow is accompanied by sustained winds or gusts over 35 mph, was in effect early Monday from Delaware to the far northern tip of Maine. The storm was expected to bring its heaviest snowfall in the pre-dawn hours Monday, sometimes dumping 2 to 4 inches an hour. A total of 12 to 16 inches was expected across nearly all of Rhode Island, Connecticut and eastern Massachusetts, though forecasters said winds of 50 mph could create much deeper snow drifts.

States of emergency were declared in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Maine and Massachusetts, where Gov. Deval Patrick urged people who did not have to be on the roads to stay home, to ensure their safety and that of work crews. Nonessential state workers were told to stay home Monday.

State police in Rhode Island responded to several snow-related car accidents, including at least two rollovers, but no serious injuries were reported.

Air carriers began canceling flights on Saturday and warned that more cancellations were likely Monday. Operations were suspended Sunday at New York's John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports and at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport.

Delta Air Lines Inc., which has canceled 850 flights and expected cancellations Monday in New York and Boston, said it hoped to be back to normal by Tuesday morning, while United Airlines said it could add more flights Monday to accommodate stranded passengers.

Before any snow accumulated in Philadelphia, the NFL moved the Philadelphia Eagles' game against the Minnesota Vikings from Sunday night to Tuesday because of "public safety concerns." Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who does football commentaries after Eagles games, wasn't amused and said fans could have handled it.

"This is football; football's played in bad weather," Rendell told KYW-TV. "I, for one, was looking forward to sitting in the stands throughout the snow and seeing an old-time football game."

After he said that, slightly less than a foot of snow fell on the City of Brotherly Love.

In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino declared a snow emergency that bans parking on all major streets, and the New England Aquarium bubble-wrapped its four 5-foot-tall penguin ice sculptures to protect them from the wind and snow.

More than 2,400 sanitation workers were working in 12-hour shifts to clear New York City's 6,000 miles of streets. Not that Mayor Michael Bloomberg wanted people to use them.

"I understand that a lot of families need to get home after a weekend away, but please don't get on the roads unless you absolutely have to," Bloomberg said.

In Rhode Island, emergency officials encouraged businesses to let employees report to work late Monday, saying road conditions for the morning commute would be treacherous.

"You don't want to get your employees hurt," said Steve Kass, a spokesman for the state Emergency Management Agency. "The roads are not going to be good, that's for sure."

The monster storm is the result of a low pressure system off the North Carolina coast and strengthened as it moved northeast, the National Weather Service said. Because of it, parts of the South had their first white Christmas since records have been kept.

(source:npr.org)

Freezing weather set to return across the country

Snow and icy conditions are expected to return tonight as today's sunshine and double digit temperatures are replaced by winds that will reprise the bitter cold experienced by most of the country in the runup to Christmas.

Severe weather warnings were issued last night for much of Scotland and Northern Ireland, and heavy snow, sleet and rain is expected to spread north-eastwards across the country, causing more disruption on the transport network.

By Tuesday morning the east, northwest, Yorkshire, West Midlands, London and the south-east are forecast to receive up to 15cm of snow – returning large parts of the country to the big chill that has made December the coldest on record.

Bookies escaped a huge payout over Christmas. Punters had bet £600,000 – making it the biggest white Christmas bet recorded in this country – but the Met Office, which uses the fall of single snow flake as a definition, only recorded a white Christmas in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Albemarle in the north-east, Church Fenton in Leeds and Waddington in Suffolk.

It proved to be a freezing Christmas Day with temperatures as low as -18.2C in Altnaharra in Scotland overnight, and Castlederg in Northern Ireland at a record low of -17.1C at 9am on Christmas morning.

Michael Lawrence, the Met Office's national forecaster, said: "There's a more definite and widespread band coming eastward on Tuesday, so the cold weather will return very late on Monday. As it progresses east it will fall into colder air and will turn more readily to snow."

"The double figure temperatures look to be moving out of the way and they are being replaced by increasing southerly winds and fronts approaching from the west."

Warnings over widespread icy roads and heavy snow were issued again yesterday across much of the UK including the north, Yorkshire, London and the south, the Midlands, Wales and Scotland.

The Met Office said there will be a continued risk of snow, which could be heavy at times and accompanied by drifting in strong winds which will spread erratically eastwards throughout the day.

The Met Office said last week that December 2010 is "almost certain" to be the coldest since records began in 1910.

The AA warned even salted roads will become perilous if temperatures fall below -10C: "Some of the cold has got down to below -10C, where you are moving into an area where salt water freezes, which means even a treated road can be untreated. Don't think you can go sailing into a corner because a road has been salted, because it just doesn't work like that. Your car thermometer may be telling you what the temperature is, but it does take a while to adjust.

"We are reminding people of the need to keep warm when they are out. What happens is not that you are caught in a snow drift these days, you get behind a jack-knifed lorry or a car that's broken down and spend a very long time sitting very still, waiting to get rescued. Make sure you are wrapped up warm, fed, with a full charged telephone battery before you leave. Then you can always stay in touch with people and tell them what has become of you.

"Obviously make sure your car is in good condition before you leave, make sure your windscreen water bottle is full of de-icer, and check on your battery."

Network Rail admitted that the past two weeks have been extremely tough, with workers having to endure harsh conditions. "It's been that way for some parts of the country for a couple of weeks and it has been tough, certainly for our guys who have to go out and work in those temperatures," she said.

Last night, hundreds of flights in the US were cancelled after heavy snowfall along the east coast of America. British Airways and Virgin are among operators cancelling services from the UK to a number of destinations in the US, including New York.

"The next couple of days are bank holidays so most of the train operators will be running a Saturday or Sunday service. We will continue with our preparations, again, ghost trains will be out tonight, our guys will be at critical junctions and we will have point heaters. We will be doing everything to keep the network open as we have before. The best advice is to check before you travel."

The freezing weather also wreaked havoc with Boxing Day sporting fixtures. Two Premier League and two SPL matches were postponed, while a total of just nine games survived in the Championship, League One and League Two.

All of yesterday's race meetings were victims of the weather, including the King George VI Chase at Kempton.

See also:

 National weather service

(source:guardian.co.uk)

Blizzard Warning Issued For New York: Snow, Everywhere!

Yay! It's snowing! Oh, wait. It's really snowing: "The National Weather Service has issued a Blizzard Warning for New York City from 6:00 AM [Sunday] through 6:00 PM Monday," the Office of Emergency Management tweeted today. "The current forecast calls for 11-16 inches of snow accompanied by strong winds. With visibility expected to be near zero at times." Plus, flights are canceled, and now holiday travelers are forced to sit at airports and talk to their families and play Gameboy. #Snowpocalypse is even a Twitter trending topic. So from a safe indoor place, we think the snow is pretty (send pics to intel@nymag.com!), but the news says it's also scary:

Thousands of flights have been canceled today. (Amtrak between New York and Boston is down, too.)

Travel misery began a day earlier in parts of the South, where a rare white Christmas came with reports of dozens of car crashes ... Airlines grounded hundreds of flights Sunday along the Northeast corridor in anticipation of the storm. New York City-area airports alone canceled close to 1,000 flights. The Northeast is expected to get the brunt of the storm ... [But] a blizzard warning was also in effect for Rhode Island and most of eastern Massachusetts including Boston, with forecasters predicting 15 to 20 inches of snow. A blizzard warning is issued when snow is accompanied by sustained winds or gusts over 35 mph.

Football games have been canceled as well:

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said the weather emergency will begin at 2 p.m. as the arriving storm is expected to dump up to 14 inches of snow in the region. "Shoppers, travelers and city residents, take advantage of an early start because [the storm] is coming in a short time," Nutter said during a Sunday morning press conference outside city hall. "When it comes it will hit very hard."

Meanwhile, the NFL announced that a game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Philadelphia Eagles - originally scheduled for Sunday night - had been postponed until 8:20 p.m. Tuesday.

But when the restaurants in New York stop delivering (never), we'll really start freaking out.

(source:nymag.com)

Chance For Flurries On Christmas Eve

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The weather should remain generally calm through Friday under mostly cloudy skies, Live Doppler 10 meteorologist Josh Poland said.

Lows will dip to 20 degrees overnight Thursday, under cloudy skies.

On Friday we'll see a high of 30 degrees, Poland said.

We could see flurries overnight on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day and light snow showers through the day on Christmas.

Snow totals should stay generally light, with 1 to 2 inches of light, fluffy snow possible.

Heavier snowfall will stay to the southern portions of the state.

Once the storm system moves east, it could intensify, Poland said.

Temperatures will stay below normal through the middle of next week before warming up a bit as we head toward New Year's Day.

Stay with the Live Doppler 10 weather team and refresh 10TV.com for the latest weather information.

Specific Area Message Encoding

Specific Area Message Encoding,

Specific Area Message Encoding or SAME is the protocol used to encode the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and NOAA Weather Radio's Public Warning System in the U.S. and Weatheradio Canada in Canada.

History

From the 1960s to the 1980s, a special feature of the NOAA Weather Radio system was the transmission of a single tone at 1050 Hz prior to the broadcast of any message alerting the general public of significant weather events. This became known as the Warning Alarm Tone (WAT). Although it has served NOAA Weather Radio well, there were many drawbacks: without staff at media facilities to manually evaluate the need to rebroadcast a Weather Radio message using the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), automatic rebroadcasting of all messages preceded by just the WAT was unacceptable and impractical. Even if stations and others with that type of need were willing to allow for this type of automatic capture, assuming the events for activation were critical, there was no way for automated equipment at the station to know when the message was complete and restore it back to normal operation.

In 1985, the National Weather Service forecast offices began experimenting with putting special digital codes at the beginning and end of every message concerning life- or property-threatening weather conditions targeting a specific area. The intent of what became SAME was to ultimately transmit a code with the initial broadcast of all Weather Radio messages. The NWS started implementing SAME on the full NOAA Weather Radio system in 1988. The SAME technique was later adopted by the FCC for regular broadcasters on radio, television, and cable, as well as by Environment Canada for its Weatheradio Canada service. Much like the original EBS alert tone, this produces a distinct sound which is easily recognized by most Americans due to its use in weekly and monthly broadcast tests, and in weather emergencies. During the said events, viewers and/or listeners will hear these digital codes in the form of buzzes, chirps, & clicking sounds (or what broadcast engineers affectionately call "duck farts")just before the attention signal is sent out and at the conclusion of the voice message.

Functionality

A sample SAME transmission

An example of SAME, with the header decoded as follows:

"A Required Weekly Test has been issued for the following counties/areas: Hillsborough FL, Manatee FL, Pasco FL, Pinellas FL, and Sarasota FL at 12:15 am EDT on October 5 effective until 12:45 am EDT. Message from WTSP/TV."

Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In the SAME system, messages are constructed in four parts, the first and last of which are digital. The first part is a header message, which is transmitted three times, so that decoders can pick "best two out of three" for each byte, thereby eliminating most errors which can cause an activation to fail.

The header is an AFSK data burst, with each individual bit lasting 1920 μs (1.92 ms) each, giving a bit rate of 5205⁄6 bits per second. A mark bit is four complete cycles of a sine wave, translating to a mark frequency of 20831⁄3 Hz, and a space bit is three complete sine wave cycles, making the space frequency 1562.5 Hz.

The data is encoded in 7-bit ASCII but uses all 8 bits, with no parity bit and no stop bit ("8-N-0"). The least-significant bit of each byte is transmitted first, including the preamble.

The text of the header code is a fixed format of Preamble-ZCZC-org-eee(up to 32 of -pssccc)+tttt-jjjhhmm-llllllll:

A preamble of binary 10101011 (0xAB in hex) repeated sixteen times, used for "receiver calibration" (i.e., clock synchronization), then the letters ZCZC as an attention to the decoder

org: Originator code; programmed per unit when put into operation

EAN - Emergency Action Notification Network (President or other authorized national officials. No longer officially used)

PEP - Primary Entry Point Station (President or other authorized national officials)

CIV - Civil authorities (i.e. Governor, state/local emergency management, local police/fire officials)

WXR - National Weather Service (or Environment Canada. Any weather-related alert)

EAS - Broadcast station or cable system (Broadcasters. Generally only used with test messages)

eee: Event code; programmed at time of event

pssccc: Location codes (up to 31 locations); programmed at time of event

In the United States, designated by FIPS state code and indicating the county (parish in Louisiana, borough or census area in Alaska), but which may be designated for the whole state by using county number 000

In Canada, designated by Canadian Location Code, which corresponds to a specific forecast region as used by the Meteorological Service of Canada

tttt: Duration of alert in the format hhmm, normally in increments of 15 minutes from time of issue

jjjhhmm: Exact time of issue, in UTC, without time zone adjustments

jjj is the Ordinal date day of the year, with leading zeros

hhmm is 24-hour hours and minutes, in UTC, with leading zeros

Eight-character station callsign identification, with / used instead of - (such as the first eight letters of a cable headend's location, WABC/FM for WABC-FM, or KLOX/NWS for a weather radio station programmed from Los Angeles).

Each field of the header code is terminated by a dash character.

Full message breakdown

An EAS message contains these elements, in this transmitted sequence:

Header

Attention signal: Sent if any message is included (normally sent with all messages except RWT on commercial radio/TV); must be at least eight seconds long

Single 1050 Hz (help·info) audio tone for Weatheradio

Combined 853 and 960 Hz (help·info) tones for commercial radio/TV

Message - audio, video image or video text

Tail: (Preamble) NNNN (EOM)

There is one second of blank audio between each section, and before and after each message.

Event codes

There are about 80 different event codes currently used in EAS. Originally, all but the first six of these were optional and could be programmed into encoder/decoder units at the request of the broadcaster. However, a July 12, 2007 memo by the FCC now requires mandatory participation in state and local level EAS.

Key for event code type field:

M mandatory code

O1 original optional code

O2 optional code added in 2002

Type Code Description

M EAN Emergency Action Notification (Begins a nationwide EAS activation)

M EAT Emergency Action Termination (Ends a national activation)

M NIC National Information Center statement (Used to follow up an EAN)

M RMT Required Monthly Test

M RWT Required Weekly Test

M NPT National Periodic Test

O1 BZW Blizzard Warning

O1 CEM Civil emergency Message

O1 CFA Coastal flood watch

O1 CFW Coastal flood warning

O1 DMO Demonstration message

O1 EVI Evacuation immediate

O1 FFA Flash flood watch

O1 FFS Flash flood statement

O1 FFW Flash flood warning

O1 FLA Flood watch

O1 FLS Flood statement

O1 FLW Flood warning

O1 HUA Hurricane watch

O1 HUW Hurricane warning

O1 HWA High wind watch

O1 HWW High wind warning

O1 SPS Special weather statement

O1 SVA Severe thunderstorm watch

O1 SVR Severe thunderstorm warning

O1 SVS Severe weather statement

O1 TOA Tornado watch

O1 TOR Tornado warning

O1 TRA Tropical storm watch

O1 TRW Tropical storm warning

O2 ADR Administrative message

O2 AVA Avalanche watch

O2 AVW Avalanche warning

O2 BHW Biological hazard warning

O2 BWW Boil water warning

O2 CAE Child abduction emergency

O2 CDW Civil danger warning

O2 CHW Chemical hazard warning

O2 CWW Contaminated water warning

O2 DBA Dam break watch

O2 DBW Dam break warning

O2 DEW Contagious disease warning

O2 DSW Dust storm warning

O2 EQW Earthquake warning

O2 EVA Evacuation watch

O2 FCW Food contamination warning

O2 FRW Fire warning

O2 FSW Flash freeze warning

O2 FZW Freeze warning

O2 HLS Hurricane local statement

O2 HMW Hazardous materials warning

O2 IBW Iceberg warning

O2 IFW Industrial fire warning

O2 LAE Local area emergency

O2 LEW Law enforcement warning

O2 LSW Landslide warning

O2 NAT National audible test

O2 NMN Network message motif

O2 NST National silent test

O2 NUW Nuclear plant warning

O2 POS Power outage statement

O2 RHW Radiological hazard warning

O2 SMW Special marine warning

O2 SPW Shelter in place warning

O2 TOE 911 telephone outage emergency

O2 TSA Tsunami watch

O2 TSW Tsunami warning

O2 TXB Transmitter backup on

O2 TXF Transmitter carrier off

O2 TXO Transmitter carrier on

O2 TXP Transmitter primary on

O2 VOW Volcano warning

O2 WFA Wildfire watch

O2 WFW Wildfire warning

O2 WSA Winter storm watch

O2 WSW Winter storm warning

O2 ??A Unrecognized watch

O2 ??E Unrecognized emergency

O2 ??S Unrecognized statement

O2 ??W Unrecognized warning

SAME on weather radio receivers

An example of a SAME alert weather radio receiver.

There are many weather/all-hazards radio receivers that are equipped with the SAME alert feature. It allows users to program SAME/FIPS/CLC codes for their designated area or areas of their interest and/or concern rather than the entire broadcast area (Examples given: If a person were to live in Irving, Texas, he or she would program a FIPS code for Dallas County. However, if he or she needs to be in the know of severe weather from the west and northwest ahead of time, the user would program additional FIPS codes for Denton and Tarrant Counties. On a more specialized receiver, a user has the option to eliminate any SAME alert codes that may not apply to their area such as a "Special Marine Warning" or a "Coastal Flood Warning"). Once the SAME header is sent by NOAA/NWS and if it matches the desired code(s), the receivers then decode the event, scroll it on their display screens, and sound an alarm.

Receivers receive on one of the following National Weather Service network frequencies (in MHz): 162.400, 162.425, 162.450, 162.475, 162.500, 162.525, and 162.550. The signals are typically receivable up to 40 miles from the transmitters. 

SAME in popular culture

The SAME EOM (end of message) tone was heard in the movie trailer for Knowing, where its familiar emergency use and its increasing cadence create a sense of foreboding.

(source:wikipedia)

Emergency Alert System

Add caption

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States put into place in 1997, superseding the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) and the CONELRAD System. It will, in turn, eventually be superseded by iPAWS - the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. It is jointly coordinated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the National Weather Service (NWS). The official EAS is designed to enable the President of the United States to speak to the United States within 10 minutes (this official federal EAS has never been activated). The EAS regulations and standards are governed by the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the FCC. Each state and several territories have their own EAS plan.

The EAS covers AM, FM and Land Mobile Radio Service, as well as VHF, UHF and cable television including low-power stations. Digital television and cable providers, along with Sirius XM satellite radio, IBOC, DAB and digital radio broadcasters have been required to participate in the EAS since December 31, 2006. DirecTV, Dish Network and all other DBS providers have been required to participate since May 31, 2007.

Technical concept

Main article: Specific Area Message Encoding

Messages in the EAS are composed of four parts: a digitally encoded SAME header, an attention signal, an audio announcement, and a digitally encoded end-of-message marker.

A Sage EAS ENDEC unit,.

The SAME header (help·info) is the most critical part of the EAS design. It contains information about who originated the alert (the President, state or local authorities, the National Weather Service, or the broadcaster), a short, general description of the event (tornado, flood, severe thunderstorm), the areas affected (up to 32 counties or states), the expected duration of the event (in minutes), the date and time it was issued (in UTC), and an identification of the originating station. (See SAME for a complete breakdown of the header.)

Over thirty radio stations are designated as National Primary Stations in the Primary Entry Point (PEP) System to distribute Presidential messages to other broadcast stations and cable systems. The Emergency Action Notification is the notice to broadcasters that the President of the United States or his designee will deliver a message over the EAS via the PEP system. "You {AM and FM broadcasters} will hear the following Emergency Action Notification Message from the EAS decoder. This is an Emergency Action Notification requested by the White House. All broadcast stations will follow activation procedures in the EAS Operating Handbook for a national level emergency. The President of the United States or his representative will shortly deliver a message over the Emergency Alert System."

Communications links

The FEMA National Radio System (FNARS) "Provides Primary Entry Point service to the Emergency Alert System," acts as an emergency presidential link into the EAS, and is capable of phone patches. The FNARS net control station is located at the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center.

What the national level EAS would not do

In a The New York Times article (correction printed January 3, 2002) the lack of news coverage by station WNYC FM, New York, was explained by the destruction of its broadcast transmitters with the collapse of the World Trade Center north tower on 9/11. "No president has ever used the current [EAS] system or its technical predecessors in the last 50 years, despite the Soviet missile crisis, a presidential assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing, major earthquakes and three recent high-alert terrorist warnings... Michael K. Powell, the then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the Emergency Alert System, pointed to 'the ubiquitous media environment,' arguing that the system was, in effect, scooped by CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel and other channels... [FEMA] activates the alert system nationally at the behest of the White House on 34 50,000-watt stations that reach 98 percent of Americans... Beyond that, the current Emergency Alert System signal is an audio message only—which pre-empts all programming—so that viewers who were watching color images of the trade center on Sept. 11 would have been able to see only a screen with a generic text message along with a presidential voice-over, if an emergency message had been activated."

Other than the on-screen scrolling message accompanying the initial activation, the Federal Communications System EAS TV Handbook - 2007 does not include any sort of visual element. Under the SAME protocol, precise emergency information would be delivered aurally.

EAS header

Because the header lacks error detection codes, it is repeated three times for redundancy. However, the repetition of the data can itself be considered an error detection and correction code—like any error detection or correction code, it adds redundant information to the signal in order to make errors identifiable. EAS decoders compare the received headers against one another, looking for an exact match between any two, eliminating most errors which can cause an activation to fail. The decoder then decides whether to ignore the message or to relay it on the air if the message applies to the local area served by the station (following parameters set by the broadcaster).

The SAME header bursts are followed by an attention signal (help·info) which lasts between eight and 25 seconds, depending on the originating station. The tone is 1050 Hz (help·info) on a NOAA Weather Radio station, while on commercial broadcast stations, it consists of a "two tone" combination of 853 Hz and 960 Hz sine waves and is the same attention signal used by the older Emergency Broadcast System. The "two tone" system is no longer required as of 1998 and is to be used only for audio alerts before EAS messages. Like the EBS, the attention signal is followed by a voice message describing the details of the alert.

A Gorman-Redlich rack mounted CAP-to-EAS converter which translates CAP formatted alerts into EAS headers.

The message ends with three bursts of the AFSK "EOM", or End of Message, which is the text NNNN, preceded each time by the binary 10101011 calibration.

The White House has endorsed the migration to the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and FEMA is in the process of testing implementation.

Station requirements

The FCC requires all broadcast stations and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPD) to install and maintain EAS decoders and encoders at their control points. These decoders continuously monitor the signals from other nearby broadcast stations for EAS messages. For reliability, at least two other source stations must be monitored, one of which must be a designated local primary. Stations are to retain the latest version of the EAS handbook.

Stations are required by law to keep full logs of all received and transmitted EAS messages. Logs may be kept by hand but are usually kept automatically by a small receipt printer in the encoder/decoder unit. Logs may also be kept electronically inside the unit as long as there is access to an external printer or method to transfer them to a personal computer.

In addition to the audio messages transmitted by radio stations, television stations must also transmit a visual message. A text "crawl" is displayed at the top of the screen that contains all of the information encoded in the initial SAME header. A color coded "crawl" system is often used where the color signifies the priority of the message. Some television stations transmit only the visual message which is outside of the requirements. A television station may be used for monitoring by another station and thus the audio is necessary.

A cable system's visual message displayed during a required test. In actual emergencies, this screen would display the FCC-mandated visual message accompanying the alert.

Upon reception of an alert, a station must relay EAN (Emergency Action Notification) and EAT (Emergency Action Termination) messages immediately (US FCC 7). Stations traditionally have been allowed to opt out of relaying other alerts such as severe weather, and child abduction emergencies (AMBER Alerts) if they so choose. Under new rules published on July 12, 2007, the FCC intends to require all stations to relay state and local alerts that are approved by their states' governors (pending approval of the CAP standard).

Some stations may be non-participating, and do not relay messages. Instead they transmit a message instructing listeners/viewers to tune to another station for the information, and they must then suspend their operation.

EAS equipment must be FCC certified for use as described above.

System test

All EAS equipment must be tested weekly. The required weekly test (RWT) consists of the header and the end-of-message SAME bursts. The RWT does not need an audio or graphic message announcing the test, although many stations will provide them as a courtesy to the listener or viewer. Television stations are not required to transmit a video message for weekly tests. RWTs are scheduled by the station, on random days and times, and are generally not relayed.

On cable systems before the start of the EAS test, all of a system's channels, both on cable ready televisions directly connected to the coaxial cable, and those on cable boxes, are redirected to one digital channel which is received on all tiers of service, but doesn't usually give out news or weather information (such as the TV Guide Network, QVC, HSN, or a public access station), where the test occurs from the local headend office or from the system's master office elsewhere in the region. Newer technology allows cable DVR and video on demand systems to interrupt playback of a program for an EAS test. After the test ends, the one channel usually remains on screen for 5-10 additional seconds before the original station/network is returned to.

Required Monthly Tests (RMTs) are generally originated by the primary relay station or a State's EAS agency, relayed by broadcast and cable stations. Some RMT's are issued by the National Weather Service, sometimes for Statewide Severe Weather Drills. RMTs are conducted with the following procedure:

Normal programming is suspended (commonly during commercial breaks), and an announcement may be made such as: "The following is a monthly test of the Emergency Alert System. This is only a test."

The SAME Header burst is sent, perhaps followed by an attention signal.

Another voice message is sent, which runs something like this:

"This is a coordinated monthly test of the broadcast stations in your area. Equipment that can quickly warn you during emergencies is being tested. If this had been an actual emergency such as a tornado warning or severe thunderstorm warning, official messages would have followed the alert tone. This concludes this test of the Emergency Alert System." (many state/local plans have different scripts)

The SAME EOM burst is sent.

RMTs must be performed between 8:30 a.m. and local sunset during odd numbered months, and local sunset to 8:30AM for even months. Received tests must be retransmitted within 60 minutes from receipt.[6] Additionally, an RMT cannot be scheduled or conducted during an event of great importance such as a pre-announced Presidential speech, coverage of a national election or a major sporting event such as the Olympic Games, the Super Bowl or the World Series as mentioned in individual EAS state plans.

An RWT is not required during a calendar week in which an RMT is scheduled. No testing has to be done at all during a calendar week in which the EAS has been legitimately activated. Coordinated national tests are planned to be conducted at least once every year, beginning in 2011, and are very similar to RMTs

Additions and proposals

The number of event types in the national system has grown to eighty. At first, almost all but three of the events (civil emergency message, immediate evacuation, and emergency action notification (national emergency)) were weather-related (such as a tornado warning). Since then, several classes of non-weather emergencies have been added, including, in most states, the AMBER Alert System for child abduction emergencies.

In 2004, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on whether EAS in its present form is the most effective mechanism for warning the American public of an emergency and, if not, on how EAS can be improved, such as mandatory text messages to cellphones, regardless of subscription. As noted above, rules implemented by the FCC on July 12, 2007 provisionally endorse replacing the SAME protocol with CAP and allow governors to compel universal activation of the system within their own states.

EAS for consumers

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (December 2009)

See also: NAVTEX

See also: Desktop alert

EAS is designed to be useful for the entire public, not just those with SAME-capable equipment. However, several consumer-level radios do exist, especially weather radio receivers, which are available to the public through both mail-order and retailers including Radio Shack and several others. Other specialty receivers for AM/FM/ACSSB(R)(LM(R)) are available only through mail-order, or in some places from federal, state, or local governments, especially where there is a potential hazard nearby such as a chemical factory. These radios come pre-tuned to a station in each area that has agreed to provide this service to local emergency management officials and agencies, often with a direct link back to the plant's safety system or control room for instant activation should an evacuation or other emergency arise.

The ability to narrow messages down so that only the actual area in danger is alerted is extremely helpful in preventing false warnings, which was previously a major tune-out factor. Instead of sounding for all warnings within a station's area, SAME-decoder radios now sound only for the counties they are programmed for. When the alarm sounds, anyone with the radio knows that the danger is nearby and protective action should be taken. For this reason, the goal of the National Weather Service is that each home should have both a smoke detector and a SAME weather radio.

The United States Military has recently employed emergency notification technologies at The United States Academy at West Point, The United States Air Force Academy and numerous military installations to assist in critical and mass notification to base personnel using alert software designed by Desktop Alert.

Currently under development is new infrastructure called the Digital Emergency Alert System. This system would allow the transmission of emergency alerts directly to citizens and responders. These alerts would be sent to users of computers, mobile phones, pagers, and other devices.

Incidents

During the September 11 attacks in 2001, "... the EAS was not activated nationally or regionally in New York or Washington during the terrorist attacks on the nation." Richard Rudman, then chairman of the EAS National Advisory Committee explained that near immediate coverage in the national media meant that the media itself provided the warning or alert of what had happened and what might happen as quickly as the information could be distributed. "Some events really do serve as their own alerts and warnings. With the immediate live media coverage, the need for an EAS warning was lessened." 34 PEP stations were kept on high alert for use if the President had decided to order an Emergency Action Notification. "PEP is really a last-ditch effort to get a message out if the president cannot get to the media."

On February 1, 2005, someone activated an EAS message over radio and television stations in Connecticut telling residents to evacuate the state immediately. Officials at the Office of Emergency Management announced that the activation and broadcast of the Emergency Alert System was in error due to possibly the wrong button being pressed. "State police said they received no calls related to the erroneous alert."

On June 26, 2007, the EAS in Illinois was activated at 7:35AM CDT and issued an Emergency Action Notification Message for the United States. This was followed by dead air and then WGN radio (the station designated to simulcast the alert message) being played on almost every television and radio station in the Chicago area and throughout much of Illinois. The accidental EAN activation was caused when a government contractor installing a new satellite receiver as part of a new national delivery path incorrectly left the receiver connected and wired to the state EOC's EAS transmitter before final closed circuit testing of the new delivery path had been completed.

On October 19, 2008 KWVE-FM of San Clemente, California was scheduled to conduct a Required Weekly Test; however, it conducted a Required Monthly Test by mistake, causing all stations and cable systems in the immediate area to relay the test. In addition, the operator aborted the test midway through, leading the station to fail to broadcast the SAME EOM burst to end the test, causing all area outlets to broadcast KWVE-FM's programming until those stations took their equipment offline. On September 15, 2009, the Federal Communications Commission fined its licensee, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, $5000 for the botched EAS test. After the fine was levied, various state broadcast associations in the United States submitted joint letters to the FCC, protesting against the fine, saying that the FCC could have handled the matter better. On November 13, 2009, the FCC rescinded its fine against KWVE-FM, but had still admonished the station for broadcasting an unauthorised RMT, as well as omitting the code to end the test.

On May 20, 2010, The NOAA All-Hazards radio EAS was activated at a little after 5PM on Wednesday. Wednesday is the day that all NOAA National Weather Service offices send test messages over NOAA Weather Radio stations. The message transmitted was a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, issued by the National Weather Service in Pendleton, Oregon, but the transmission was somehow botched. The audio portion of the message was silent for a moment, followed by a few words in Spanish.

During September, 2010, the staff of KCST radio in Florence, Oregon noticed that their EAS equipment would repeatedly unmute as if receiving an incoming EAS message several times a week. During each event, the same commercial advertisement for ARCO/BP gasoline could be heard, along with the words "This test has been brought to you by ARCO". Further investigation by the primary station transmitting the commercial revealed that the spot had been produced using an audio clip of an actual EAS header which had been modified somewhat to disguise it's origin and presumably prevent it from triggering false positive alert reactions in EAS equipment. The spot was distributed nationally, and after it had once been identified as the source of the false EAS equipment trips, various stations around the country reported having had similar experiences. After a widespread notification by the Society of Broadcast Engineers was issued, ARCO's ad agency withdrew the commercial from air play.

EAS event codes

Main article: Specific Area Message Encoding

In popular culture

In the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, during a Russian invasion of the United States, one of the loading screen videos is simply the Emergency Alert System. A message scrolls across the screen giving evacuation instructions for residents of Prince George's County. Strangely, the scrolling message says "EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM" when the tone is actually the EAS tone.


See also
Christmas emergency
Severe weather terminology United States

(source:wikipedia)