Non EAS Emergency
Posted on February 28, 2011
Last night a tornado warning was issued for the St. Louis, Missouri, area with a very intense squall line moving at 70mph from west to east. During serious weather KDX online radio always closes down to protect equipment from damage. I settled in the basement with flashlights, radio and snacks.
The only station in this otherwise large metro area which had live storm coverage was 50kW KMOX, all other stations were running canned programming. Listeners called in from points in the storm and with reports of power lines and trees down. Then, in a burst the squall passed our location in unusually quick fashion. Half the neighborhood lost power but our building, except for a succession of brown-outs, kept power.
When the storm crossed the Mississippi and got into Illinois it constantly put KMOX off the air, and they recovered right away, except for one extended outage.
Although quick, the storm left a series of power poles and their transformers blocking a main road one block away.
The radio personnel who followed the storm were local staff and the EAS was not employed.
