Re: Massachusetts Amber Alert

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 09:26 AM 8/8/2003, Kevin Vahey wrote:
>I don't think given what happened in New Hampshire a month ago could 
>anybody say there was an overeaction last night.
>
>One major hole that needs to be addressed is NESN as this time of year it 
>is on many nights the most watched station in the Boston market.

That, and ESPN with the Patriots game....I was watching the Sox game and 
saw no Amber alert, and once one of my staffers called me to let me know, I 
flipped to the Pats game and saw nothing after watching for a few minutes 
either.

Then I called up my loyal minions,  errr...fabulous college clients :-) at 
WZBC and it turns out they hadn't gotten the first alert.  I think this 
exposes a problem with the Burk EAS...or possibly just their Burk EAS, I 
have to do a proper after-action report still...but the real problem is this:

After being informed that there was an Amber alert, I had NO means of 
finding out the official details manually.  I had to call WBUR (I called 
there first just because I know all the phone numbers), the Brighton State 
Police Barracks, the Main State Police Dispatch in Framingham, and finally 
the WBZ news room before I could get the info to relay to WZBC.   And by 
then I had gotten it from listening to WBZ's hold music when they broadcast 
what must've been the second iteration of the alert.

The Framingham Dispatch offered to fax the details but unfortunately the 
ZBC fax machine is busted and I didn't know about it until after I hung up 
with policeman.  In their defense, the police I spoke with were very nice 
and tried to be as helpful as possible, but they just weren't sure about 
what to do or their info (one policewoman said she thought it was X license 
plate number but she had heard Y number originally, for example).

Frighteningly enough, I might have been the reason Gina Tempesta (sp?) at 
WBUR knew there was an Amber Alert going on - she said there was nothing on 
the wires and neither of us could find anything on-line.  When I was there 
by 9:30pm only the on-air person and maybe one or two production guys and 
an editor are still in the building...and the latter two are busy making 
cuts for Morning Edition the next day.   I did hear Gina make an 
announcement during the 10pm newscast, so I assume she got the info from 
the State Police as well.

Fortunately that second Amber iteration was received by WZBC and they 
played it...which is the first time I've ever heard a voice message 
successfully played over EAS.  Which raises a question - was the first 
Amber EAS a full voice message from the State Police, or just a "heads up" 
text only message?

Also - the last time the kids were seen was stated to be at 4:50pm in the 
afternoon IIRC...the alert went out at 9:30pm or so, right?  That's an 
awfully long time for an abductor to get away...I thought Amber was 
supposed to be triggered within one or two hours - tops - of the 
abduction.   Was the potential abduction not brought to the Police's 
attention until later in the day?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA