Printing that story about the February 20, 1971 major goof of the EBS message on the teletype machines across the country that morning, brought new chills down my spine as I remember being on duty here in Seattle on that occasion.  I am now retired but I remember I was the Saturday morning newsman at KIRO/AM/FM/TV in Seattle when the teletype bells started ringing that morning.  I ran from the news booth and couldn't believe my eyes.  However, I became suspicious when the two other news machines next to the one with the message were not printing the same "Alert"..  We had three services side by side in our teletype room, United Press, Associated Press and Reuters.  My suspicions were aroused when only one service was sending the message.  I decided to wait instead of rushing on the air with the alert.  A few minutes later the error was revealed by subsequent messages from Cheyenne.

I faced a monumental decision that Saturday morning back in 1971 since KIRO-AM was the station all other stations in this region monitored for the EBS alerts.  However, even though I decided to wait for a follow-up message before going on the air with the alert, several other stations in the city proceeded with the alert and must have terrified their listeners until they could backtrack a few minutes later.

To this day, I will never forget that frightful morning...all alone in the newsroom at 7:30 AM.  But while I was trying to collect my thoughts and deciding what to do, the error messages began typing away on not only the original machine, but all three were then explaining the erroneous message.  Monday morning I was called into the GM's office and reprimanded for not proceeding with the alert, but was also commended for the action I took that may have prevented a major panic over the Pacific Northwest.

Dick Harris - K7VCD
ARRL - QCWA - SBE
March 26, 2006

Posted by Steve Blodgett
Earthsignals.com