In July the engineering team at Cumulus Media station WJR(AM) in Detroit hosted members of the emergency alerting community from around southeast Michigan for a tour of its transmitter site.
I spotted the group photo in the newsletter of the Michigan Association of Broadcasters and thought it seemed an excellent example of how broadcasters can interact with local authorities.
In recent years the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been conducting a program to harden Emergency Alert System infrastructure at several dozen of the country’s 77 Primary Entry Point stations in the National Public Warning System, such as WBZ, KIRO, KHKA, WLW and other big stations.
These PEP stations, as most RW readers know, work with FEMA to provide emergency alert and warning information to the public before, during and after incidents and disasters. They’re also a primary source of initial broadcast for a national alert. They need to withstand natural disasters and man-made events to ensure continuity of operations.
The “all-hazards” FEMA upgrades include increased sheltering capabilities, expanded broadcast capacity and sustainable power generation for all types of hazardous events. Studios in standalone modules ensure that PEP radio stations are capable of broadcasting during and after emergencies when other communication sources may be down.
WJR is the PEP station for Michigan; it received its upgrade in 2018.
Dan Kelley, MAB’s director of technical services and co-chair of Michigan’s State Emergency Communications Committee, told me that he and Jaclyn Barcroft of the Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division met a while back with Manny Centeno. As the program manager for the FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, he was responsible for coordinating these upgrades. (Centeno recently was promoted to IPAWS director.)
Manny suggested offering a tour of WJR at some point to raise awareness about the facility. So Dan and Jaclyn Barcroft reached out to Keith Bosworth, Cumulus regional director of engineering for the Great Lakes Region, to schedule a visit and lunch.
The tour attracted representatives from the Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division, Michigan Association of Broadcasters, City of Dearborn Emergency Management Division, City of Detroit Homeland Security and Emergency Management, Canton Township Emergency Management Division, City of Livonia Office of Emergency Preparedness, Macomb County Emergency Management and Port Huron-based radio station WPHM(AM). Many of the people who attended are responsible for issuing emergency alerts to the public during an emergency or disaster.
Dan told me that most broadcasters and alerting authorities in Michigan stand behind the same mission of working together to provide lifesaving information to the public quickly during emergencies and disasters. The state EAS plan was approved by the FCC in late 2022, and Southeastern Michigan EAS region recently met to start working together to update their own area EAS plan.
Dan added that the station visit impressed him. For one thing, he said, WJR has no fewer than three 50 kW transmitters that can go on the air at any time, another 10 kW as a backup, and inside the FEMA shelter on site is another 5 kW transmitter. Let’s hear it for redundancy.
(You can see striking images of the main Art Deco transmitter building by Googling “WJR transmitter building.” Got an idea for how to work better with your local alerting authorities? Email me at radioworld@futurenet.com.)
