By Caitlin Granfield
Randy Wright, who serves as the executive director of the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications, developed an emergency alert system called “BEACON”, which stands for Broadcast Emergency Alerts and Communications Operations Network. It’s intended to alert Florida residents about “real-time, life-saving information,” such as weather-related emergencies like hurricanes, flooding, and even winter storms, which recently affected northern Florida and parts of the panhandle. The alerts may advise residents to shelter in place or to evacuate and are said in multiple languages.
What sets BEACON apart from other emergency alert networks is how emergency alerts get delivered to people.
“During the worst of times, when power has been lost, there is no internet, cell service is out, the broadcast radio infrastructure remains as the most resilient medium that exists,” says Wright of the main means of how BEACON is disseminated to the public. In addition to FM and AM radio channels, people can also download the BEACON mobile app or stream it to get alerts.
Wright came up with the concept for BEACON two years ago, aiming to utilize the broadcast transmission infrastructure that’s already in place in Florida and pair it with artificial intelligence technology. The beta site for BEACON was launched last month in the Gainesville-Ocala market on WUFT-FM HD channel 4, as a 24 hour a day broadcast service. He says BEACON was designed to serve the government agencies at all levels by providing them with a direct conduit for their official alerts and advisories to be broadcast to the public.
By using AI, BEACON can operate without any human intervention or interference as all alerts and advisories are submitted into the Beacon system by the agencies themselves, Wright says. “BEACON’s AI system automatically and immediately voices the alert or advisory text and broadcasts it to the appropriate area,” he says. “The local/county, state and federal agencies control the message 100%.”
Wright says BEACON’s primary partnership is with the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM), which provided the seed funding to help develop the concept and to bring it to life. BEACON’s technology partner is Futuri Media, which developed the technology to build the app and created the operating system so that it could be accessible to government public safety and emergency management agencies.
Each market will have a BEACON “host” station, which is the radio or television station that agrees to host the BEACON signal for that market. That station will dedicate a channel (either an HD sub-channel like what WUFT has done in Gainesville-Ocala, a stand-alone signal like an AM station or a television sub-channel) to ensure Beacon has a 24-hour a day “home” in that market. Wright says this will provide hyper-local alert information, in addition to any information relevant from a state or federal perspective.
That host station can then choose to move the BEACON signal to a primary channel during a time of crisis, says Wright, “but at the minimum they provide an always-on channel where people can receive the local BEACON signal in their community,” he says. They then also agree to promote BEACON on all of their other stations or channels to help ensure public awareness.
WLRN, South Florida’s NPR station, plans to make BEACON a host station.
“BEACON will be a direct pipeline for accurate and timely information via one of WLRN’s digital radio channels. Radio broadcasting is one of the most durable and reliable sources for reaching mass audiences. As a BEACON partner, WLRN will be able to also broadcast emergency information in multiple languages in real time, thus providing a true public service,” says John LaBonia, WLRN Public Media’s CEO.
“This is really a groundbreaking initiative,” says Wright of BEACON, “because it utilizes AI in the most responsible and positive way to create public safety information and content that’s not currently widely available on a day in/day out basis. Additionally, it provides all of these local, state and federal agencies with a direct line to the public in a format that’s non-commercial and 100% focused on safety and official information, free of misinformation and filtering/editing by anyone.”
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