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The Minot toxic spill and senator Dorgan's outrage is appropriate " When a train derailment in the middle of the night released a frightening cloud of anhydrou
by losteverything 9y ago
The Minot toxic spill and senator Dorgan's outrage is appropriate
"
When a train derailment in the middle of the night released a frightening cloud of anhydrous ammonia, Minot police sought to notify the citizenry of the crisis. They called KCJB, the station designated as the local emergency broadcaster, but no one was home; the station was being run by computer, automatically passing along Clear Channel programming from another city.
Clear Channel argues that only a technical glitch prevented word from getting through. But glitches aside, the six stations now have only one news employee among them."
Radio is key in disasters. Why do this?
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2007/01/what_really_happened_in_minot_nd.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/20...
- adfm 9y agoI'm kind of curious about this myself. With the recent wildfires in Northern California, there was plenty of confusion on the ground as residents groped for a solid news source. The local radio stations (KSRO, in particular) were key communications infrastructure for citizens and first responders. As much as we like to think we've got the technology thing figured out, your smartphone becomes a useless brick when the cell towers start melting. Don't take your infrastructure for granted. One by one, with the exception of AT&T (salt water battery backups anyone?), the wireless networks and cable TV went down. When you've got your bags packed and you're ready to bug out, you tune in to the local radio station because the spotty overtaxed 4G and Satellite TV can deliver only so much relevant information.