THE VALLEYS The power to inform in emergency

Officials, power companies and the National Weather Service are devising ways to issue alerts for outage-related problems.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- When a powerful storm tore through the area Saturday, leaving more than 50,000 residents and businesses without power, local disaster officials knew how long the outages would last.
They also knew the temperature was going to nose-dive and that people who would be without power the longest would probably need to seek shelter elsewhere until power was restored.
The problem was, they couldn't get that information into the hands of people left in the dark. That's been a problem for years, and officials aren't sure how to overcome it.
"That's the last piece of the puzzle," said Walter Duzzny, director of the Mahoning County Emergency Management Agency.
"What if we need to reach people and tell them that it's just not safe to stay in their house anymore? We need, in some way, shape or form, to reach the public."
Early warnings: EMA directors in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys have forged a partnership with Ohio Edison to work together during such emergencies.
Paul Harkey, Ohio Edison's Youngstown district manager, said the company generally is able to tell where and when a storm will hit, how much damage it will cause and how much help will be needed to repair it.
Based on years of tracking storms, the company can also tell where outages are most likely to happen.
Harkey said FirstEnergy, Ohio Edison's parent company, now has holdings from Cleveland east to New Jersey. Officials share weather information so they can brace for storms by having enough personnel on hand to deal with the damage.
All that information is now passed along to the EMA, which in turn can warn the public through radio and television notices before the storm hits, Duzzny said. Those media are lost when the power goes out, but people still need information, he said.
In most cases, people want to know how long the outage in their area will last so they can decide whether to stay home and wait or seek shelter elsewhere.
Emergency radio: Duzzny said it would be helpful if each household had an emergency alert radio, which has a battery backup so it will operate during an outage.
He said the EMAs are working out an agreement with the National Weather Service that will allow local officials to broadcast non-weather-related information over those radios, such as when power should be restored and what residents should do in the meantime.
However, the radios cost about $50 each, and many homes don't have them, he said.
Harkey said Ohio Edison has a customer-service telephone number, but it's often jammed during emergencies by people's repeated calls for information. "We're doing what we can to make the situation better," Harkey said. "It's something we'll continue to work on."
bjackson@vindy.com