City to start AM radio station for disaster transmissions

By KEVIN COURTNEY, Register Staff Writer

The city of Napa is going to start its own radio station, but don't expect to hear oldies hits or hip-hop artists.

Radio Napa will focus on disasters, manmade and natural. It will be a place to go for news and information when the earth shakes or streams overflow their banks.

The city is investing $30,000 to create a low-power AM station that will have the latest information when a disaster strikes.

At 10 watts, the station should reach anyone living within four miles of City Hall in downtown, said Barry Martin, a consultant to the city. The goal is to have the station up and running by this winter's rainy season, he said.

The Napa City Council approved the station last week. It will be funded from revenues from the downtown redevelopment area.

In non-emergency times, the station would play disaster preparedness tapes or possibly community service announcements, Martin said.

When disaster strikes, the station would go live with the latest information from the city's disaster coordination center, he said.

Until now, the city has relied on KVON, a commercial AM radio station, to broadcast disaster news, but there have been frequent glitches.

"The radio station has a tendency to go down in certain situations such as earthquakes and floods," said Cassandra Walker, the city's redevelopment manager.

KVON was knocked out of service by floods in 1986 and on New Year's Day this year, Walker said. The station also went off the air during a critical period during the 2000 quake.

The City Hall station would have its own emergency power and would be outside flood zones, Martin said. If the community lost electricity in a disaster, residents would need battery-powered or crank radios to receive the city's AM signal, he said.

"The more redundancy the better," said Neal O'Haire, the county's emergency services manager. A municipal station would complement the commercial news media, he said.

"We have to be self-reliant," said Graham Wadsworth, a city engineer. In a major earthquake, Napa could be cut off from Bay Area radio and TV stations for days, he said.

Martin said the idea for a low-power emergency station occurred to him in the pre-dawn on New Year's Day when Napa Creek had flooded and the Napa River was about to flood, yet there was no information available on commercial radio or TV.

The city's own Web site was not up to date, and the local public access TV station, Channel 28, was not on the air, Martin said.

If city officials had had their own radio station, information about flooding and evacuation procedures could have been disseminated as the situation developed, he said.

The council appropriated $20,000 for radio equipment and federal licensing, and another $10,000 for Martin to tape information dealing with a variety of disaster scenarios. Martin is also charged with finding ways to better use the city's Web site and public access TV station in emergencies.

The station could play community announcements in non-disaster times, but content would have to be 100 percent non-commercial in accordance with Federal Communications Commission policies, Martin said.

At 10 watts, the station would be positioned on the AM dial so that it did not conflict with any other station, he said.

Jeff Schechtman, general manager of 5,000-watt KVON, an AM station, said he had not been briefed on the city's plans for an emergency station.

While floods have twice knocked out KVON's transmission tower at Kennedy Park, KVON recently strengthened flood defenses. The station should be able to survive another flood like New Year's Day, he said.

Schechtman has suggested that the city encourage residents to tune to KVON's sister station, KVYN-FM, for breaking news when KVON has been rendered silent.

KVON and KVYN both provide significant public service in a disaster, Martin said, but there is still a need for a city-controlled station available to go live on a moment's notice.

Radio Napa would be comparable to the low-powered stations in national parks that provide welcoming information to campers and highway stations that warn motorists of obstructions ahead, he said.

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