Community content submitted by KUPR
Imagine a wildfire on the mountain this summer, wind-driven and rapidly moving toward the village and surrounding neighborhoods. In this scenario, PNM has turned off power and most of eastern Placitas is on the only road out – gridlocked on NM165, experiencing limited communication with the outside world. As the Texas floods showed us last year, communication saves lives. Placitas has no sirens, spotty cell service, no reverse 911 and a mass notification system for Sandoval County that is currently in transition to SCAN (Sandoval County Alert & Notification).
All of Placitas is designated as high risk for wildfire, and there are other risks like flash floods and pipeline accidents. Your safety depends on a robust, resilient, and redundant communications infrastructure; state and local government and a local community radio station working together to ensure that residents can receive timely, life-saving information no matter where they live. No one system is adequate.
One piece is the Emergency Alert System (EAS), part of FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), designed to reach the public with critical alerts via broadcasters. Emergency messages are sent to EAS-enabled stations—including KUPR. IPAWS and EAS continue to function even when internet, cell phone and cable services are down. This makes them a crucial line of communication during wildfire, power outages and other emergencies. But they depend on radio communication.
KUPR has been working to make sure its broadcast can be part of the communication lifeline in the event of an emergency. This means being able to stay on the air, even during a prolonged power outage. One of KUPR’s volunteer engineers, Patrick VanderWyden, has designed a power backup system for the station intended to do just that – automatically switching between the grid and alternate power, as needed. The alternate power source at the studio is solar – now in operation. Soon to be installed is the same switching technology at the transmitter site, but with battery backup. Patrick tells us he hesitates to say this makes KUPR blackout-proof, but it is certainly now blackout-resistant. The next project is finding ways to extend KUPR’s reach into areas of Placitas that cannot currently receive the low-power signal over the air. This will require some additional investment in infrastructure and equipment.