Warning radios in every home goal of Douglas County effort

Project Community Alert kicks off at courthouse

First came the piercing tone, then an authoritative voice followed by a scramble to take cover.

Just in time.

“I saw the tornado on the ground,” said Jeff Kellogg, a survivor of the devastating swath that ripped through Wyandotte County a year ago. “It was pretty obvious then that I had to take action. I moved the kids to the garage — my 4-year-old twins — moved them to the garage area and got them underneath my big, heavy workbench, and got in front of ’em and blocked ’em the best I could, and put a chair over my head, trying to protect my head in case the worst came.

“And it was a short time later when the worst did happen.”

Kellogg lost his three-bedroom home to the twister, but he credits the warning radio for saving the lives of himself and his children. And that convinced him to become a full-fledged, card-carrying member of Project Community Alert, an effort to get all-hazard warning radios into Douglas County homes, offices and businesses.

Kellogg joined emergency officials, weather experts and “Mark Trail” cartoonist Jack Elrod to launch the effort Thursday at the Douglas County Courthouse.

Their goal: boost ownership and use of such digital radios in the area beyond the national average of 10 percent to 15 percent.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to save lives,” said Linda Cottin, co-owner of Cottin’s Hardware & Rental, 1832 Mass., which is offering such radios at cost.

The $39.95 all-hazard alert monitors are manufactured by Midland Radio Corp., based in North Kansas City, Mo.

6News meteorologists are conducting drawings Tuesday for three all-hazard weather radios.To enter the drawings, send a postcard to 6Weather, 644 N.H., Lawrence 66044, or e-mail weather@6newslawrence.com. Be sure to include your name and phone number.Drawings will be conducted during morning weather updates, which run from 5:26 a.m. to 8:56 a.m. on Sunflower Broadband Channel 6, and on “6News” at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., also on Channel 6.

A similar campaign already has put 25,000 warning radios in the hands of folks in the Kansas City area, prompting the move to expand the effort to cover an even wider area.

The radios are the most reliable way to receive important warnings, said Teri Guenther, the county’s assistant director of emergency preparedness.

Once activated by the National Weather Service or other emergency agencies, the radios blare out a 90-decibel tone — “that’s enough to wake you up in the middle of the night,” said Eric Schnek, Midland’s finance director — followed by an announcement about the nature of the emergency: a tornado on the ground, a chemical spill nearby or even a search for a lost child through an Amber Alert.

The radios stand ready around the clock and can withstand power outages if equipped with a battery.

“They can alert you daytime, nighttime, anytime there’s an emergency,” Guenther said.

The radios can be equipped to sound only for warnings of specific types or locations. An owner can program the radio to announce only tornado warnings in Douglas County, or to sound for all warnings established within a 50-mile radius.

Elrod, who served as a meteorologist in the Navy during World War II before penning his environmental comic strip, said he was happy to lend support to Project Community Alert. He mentioned he was proud of three things he’s done during the past 40 years for his title character: allowing him to quit smoking, convincing him to get married and insisting that he become an advocate for weather radios.

“This is a great program,” Elrod said. “Everybody should have one.”