The Marin County Sheriff’s Air Patrol Unit is implementing a new public safety warning device following successful tests this spring.
A recently acquired airborne public address system for its fixed-wing aircraft, called a loud hailer, adds a significant new benefit to the County’s existing blend of warning systems and devices. The loud hailer delivers spoken advisories, warnings and emergency messages from the single-engine plane to people on the ground who can’t be contacted by other means for a variety of reasons. Messages can be prerecorded or read aloud by airplane crew. The loud hailer is to be used to alert people in life-threatening situations who might be isolated by earthquake or in direct threat of a fire, flood or tsunami.
The primary mission of the Sheriff’s Air Patrol Unit is to support law enforcement. The unit also serves public safety by supporting other agencies and concerns such as search and rescue operations and the Office of Emergency Services (OES). Like Sheriff’s deputies, the Air Patrol personnel are entrusted to keep local communities safe. They do this as overhead observers during routine, countywide patrols on the weekends and with the ability to provide live aerial photos, videos and observations of disaster-affected areas.
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Marin OES is encouraging heightened awareness around the dangers of tsunami in our coastal and inland bay communities. Strategically targeted airborne messages will help save lives, especially when other methods of communication break down. The acquisition of the loud hailer considerably aided the County in earning its state-awarded Tsunami-Ready Certification.
The loud hailer was successfully tested over a designated area during Mill Valley’s coordinated evacuation drill, an annual emergency exercise in May. In addition to the County’s Telephone Emergency Notification System (TENS), the loud hailer accentuated the importance of alerting our community to life-threatening situations. Here is a video clip of the loud hailer on a test flight over Novato.
