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Danny Mastalka selected for weather project to benefit emergency service
Kingfisher Times and Free Press, Kingfisher, Oklahoma. July 1997
Danny Mastalka of Kingfisher is one of 10 participants selected to participate in a federally-funded project to provide specialized weather information for public safety agencies.
Mastalka is director of the Kingfisher City-County Emergency Management program.
"We're real fortunate to be among the first 10 selected for this program," Mastalka said. "I've been trying to get radar for the eight years I've been here, but the cost is out of sight."
He said his office will be able to receive instantaneous weather data from the program that will include up-to-the-minute warnings during times of inclement weather in Kingfisher County.
He will receive free access to data and products from the Oklahoma Mesonet, the National Weather Service and 14 NEXRAD radars that scan over Oklahoma.
The Mesonet is a network of 114 automated weather stations across the state which provide input on new types of weather products being developed for the emergency management community.
The customized weather information program has been developed by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey at the University of Oklahoma with a $550,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
OCS is establishing computer links for 32 public safety agencies, including police, fire and civil emergency management organizations throughout Oklahoma.
Weather information will be tailored to meet individual community needs.
The new program is called Oklahoma's First-Response Information Resource System using Telecommunications, or OK-FIRST.
Mastalka will attend two summer institutes this summer at OU in Norman. The first is June 10-12 and is devoted solely to computer training. The second is June 23-27 and will focus on data products available. Follow-up institutes are planned in the fall and early spring of 1998.
"This innovative program will place Oklahoma in a position to be the role model for the other 49 states in providing information from the modernized weather service to public safety agencies of Oklahoma-fire, police and emergency management," Kenneth Crawford, OCS director and OU professor of meteorology, said.
OK-FIRST will use two existing telecommunications networks to distribute specifically -tailored weather information to local communities.
OneNet is a statewide fiber optic network managed by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.
The second network is the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Telecommunications System operated by the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety.
Other agencies supporting the effort include the Oklahoma State Department of Civil Emergency Management, OU's Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms and OU's Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies.
" A lot of emergency management agencies in Oklahoma have small budgets," Dale Morris, OK-FIRST assistant director, said. "Until now, state and local government agencies have largely been neglected in the area of emergency weather information.
"For instance, I recently had a call from an emergency management coordinator in a small town whose only information source, in addition to the television, was a phone call to the National Weather Service in Tulsa. The OK-FIRST project will vastly improve the ability of these coordinators to protect the citizens in their areas," he said.
"This grant is a wonderful opportunity for Oklahoma to lead the nation in public safety and state weather information services," U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts Jr., said in announcing the award.
"This advanced knowledge is important with Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and, in the end, it will save lives," he added.
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