Posted on: Friday, June 24, 2005
Alert's first test partly cloudy
| • | Video may show man who stole truck with baby |
By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer
The state's Maile Amber Alert system initially broadcast a two-minute weather report after it was activated for the first time yesterday, but police quickly reset the system and broadcast a description of a missing baby and a stolen truck the baby was sitting in.
"The system functioned very quickly and effectively but it highlighted some tweaking we need to do so it can't happen again that we have weather information being broadcast at the same time the child abduction code is going out," said George Burnett, state Civil Defense telecommunications officer.
The truck and the 4-month-old girl were found in a church parking lot on Moanalua Road by a delivery truck driver who was tipped off about the incident by his company's dispatcher.
Honolulu police spokeswoman Michelle Yu said the department activated the system at 3:15 p.m. after officers had compiled enough information about a gold Toyota pickup truck that was stolen from the 7-Eleven store at Kuakini Street and Nu'uanu Avenue with an infant in the back seat.
Before issuing the alert, at 2:52 p.m., HPD's dispatch office issued a description of the truck via e-mail to all media.
Burnett said once the department activated the system a signal was sent to O'ahu Civil Defense, which controls the emergency alert system, alerting the office that a Maile Amber Alert was being issued.
But HPD cut off the signal initially on their end because they misstated the age of the baby, saying she was 14 months old instead of 4 months old.
By halting the signal, HPD didn't send a recorded audio message with the truck and baby's description, prompting the system to automatically send out yesterday's weather report to all TV and radio stations via the emergency alert systems.
Some stations aired the weather report and others did not, Burnett said.
HPD dispatchers remedied the situation within five minutes by correcting the child's age, and re-sent the signal with a recorded message containing the truck and child's description.
"From a functional point of view, this was a technical issue that caused confusion," Burnett said. "The overall operation was successful in quickly getting the word out."
Once police determine an alert should be issued, the state Civil Defense Emergency Alert System is activated and participating television and radio stations interrupt programming to broadcast the alert. The Department of Transportation uses its highway message signs to alert drivers.
DOT spokesman Scott Ishikawa said his agency got the word at 3 p.m. to prepare their message boards around the island for an alert, but to hold off until further notice. "Since the e-mail went out at 2:52 to all the media word was already getting out," Ishikawa said. "While we were setting up and getting ready to go, things were being resolved so quickly that we were in limbo."
DOT's message boards were not used as part of the alert Wednesday. HPD's Yu said the department will convene a meeting next week to evaluate the alert's initial use.
The Maile Amber Alert is an acronym for Minor Abducted In Life-threatening Emergency and America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. It is named after two girls — Maile Gilbert of Hawai'i and Amber Hagerman of Texas — who were kidnapped and murdered. Since the Amber Alert began in 1996, nearly 200 children have been recovered safely.
The state's Maile Amber Alert is a collaborative effort of the four county police departments, various state and federal agencies, as well as the media. The program is intended to issue alerts through the media and on highway message signs soon after a child is abducted.
Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8110.
