The York Dispatch (Pennsylvania)
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YORK COUNTY, Pa. — Supervisors at York County 911 were retrained for a second time in four months on how to use the emergency alert system after messages sent Saturday to radio and television stations for broadcast lacked audio recordings.
The messages were meant to alert residents near an underground fire in York City to stay inside.
But they lacked audio recordings, meaning that broadcasts were interrupted and listeners heard the characteristic alert tones but no recording telling them what to do, according to Audrey Rychalsky, 911 operations manager.
Television stations could have used text provided by 911 to scroll across the screen, Rychalsky said, but the alert was effectively useless for radio listeners.
Human error: The problem was caused by human error after a 911 supervisor failed to flip a switch needed to record his voice, Rychalsky said.
He thought his voice was being recorded because a sound meter was rising and falling, Rychalsky said.
The Pennsylvania Department of Emergency Management was on site Tuesday to provide 911 supervisors with remedial training on how to use the
alert system, Rychalsky said.
Supervisors went through in-house training on the alert system after a similar problem in April. That was also blamed on human error, Rychalsky said.
“The situation has been corrected,” she said. “I don’t look for it to occur again.”
The alert system was created in 1963 and is designed to provide the president with a means to address the country in the event of a national emergency, although it has never been used for that purpose, according to PEMA. The president allows state and local emergency information to be transmitted via the system.
PEMA cleared York County 911 to use the alert system following Tuesday’s training, Rychalsky said.
Before April, York County 911 had not used the system for over three years, Rychalsky said.
Supervisors have been drilled on using the system every Tuesday since then, she said.
A busy day: Heavy activity in the 911 center related to that day’s rainfall might have contributed to the mistake, Rychalsky said. The supervisor who made the error is an experienced employee with more than 20 years with the department.
The fire on Saturday started when rain, not draining fast enough off the streets and from Met-Ed’s underground network, reached electrical connections, according to Met-Ed.
The water shorted out the connections, causing sparks, according to Met-Ed. The sparks caused fire and smoke, which built up pressure underground. That pressure eventually released when a manhole cover flew into the air.
Several streets were temporarily closed because of the incident.