Wichita ? An emergency alert system that uses the media to help find missing or abducted children began operating Tuesday in Sedgwick County.

With the same system used to provide severe weather information to television and radio stations, the Amber Alert Plan will dispatch descriptions and other details about missing children.

Broadcasters could choose to post a photograph of the missing child in the corner of the screen or break into programming with reports about the disappearance.

“We don’t have these kinds of cases very often, thank goodness, but when they do happen, it’s a really big deal,” said Janet Johnson, Wichita Police Department spokeswoman.

The program originated in Arlington, Tex., after the 1996 abduction, sexual assault and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman.

Convinced she could have been saved if her kidnapping had been instantly publicized, local residents persuaded a radio station to start the system.

Numbers from the U.S. Department of Justice show the importance of getting information out quickly. Of abducted children who are killed, nearly three-fourths die in the first three hours.

About three dozen places across the United States already use the early warning system, including the Kansas City area. And Kansas Atty. Gen. Carla Stovall recently created a task force to form a plan for a statewide Amber Alert network similar to those used in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Illinois and eight other states.

Officials in Wichita and Sedgwick County expect to issue Amber Alerts sparingly. The alerts won’t be used when authorities believe the abductor was a parent or the child was taken as part of a domestic or custodial disputes.

“If you’re not careful, it becomes like the boy who cried wolf,” Johnson said.