Susan McAvoy (202) 720-4623
susan.mcavoy@usda.gov
Claiborn Crain (202) 720-1255
ccrain@rus.usda.gov
Washington, May 12, 2000--Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce are creating a partnership to extend emergency radio service to rural areas of the nation.
Through the agreement, USDA's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) will encourage the installation of emergency radio transmitters by identifying rural utility towers not currently receiving the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) transmissions. NOAA will work with the utility to install the transmitters to provide the warning signal to that area.
"The cost of installing radio transmitters is small when you consider the life-saving service it will provide to millions of rural people nationwide," Glickman said. "West of the Mississippi River, more than two-thirds of the land area is still not covered by this vital radio service, and large areas of the eastern third of the country also lack coverage."
Inadequate warnings of approaching hazards, such as floods, tornadoes and hurricanes are particularly acute in the nation's rural areas. Once the transmitters are installed in areas, households will be able to receive warnings through NOAA radios, the internet, pagers and telephones.
"This agreement is a real life saver for rural Americans," said Jack Kelly, assistant administrator for the National Weather Service. "The Rural Utilities Service's long-standing relationship with electric and telephone cooperatives will make it easier to identity weather radio transmission sites, as well as partnering with them to install transmitters."
Utilities willing to mount a transmitter will be asked to donate power to run it, including an emergency back-up power source. The savings from using existing towers and power supplies can more than double the deployment of weather radio transmitters.
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