Westendorf.US » AMBER Alerts

AMBER Alert

Ryan Westendorf — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 05:25:43 +0000

This AMBER Alert has been cancelled, although the children are still thought to be with their non-custodial mother and boyfriend heading to Maine.

This is an Iowa AMBER Alert. Iowa Law Enforcement has determined that two children have been abducted and the lives of the child are in danger.

The abducted children are: Rae Ann Meyer, an 8 year old white female. She is 4′0″, weighs 65 pounds, and has blonde hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a green short sleeve shirt, green camo capris and dark flip flops. Cameron A. Meyer, a 10 year old while male. He is 4′6″, weighs 110 pounds, and has light brown hair and blue eyes.

The children were reported taken by their non-custodial biological mother and boyfriend from Oakland, Iowa.

The suspects are 30 year old Brandi Harris, a white female who is 5′5″, 140 pounds; and Vince Hatch, a white male who is 6′0″, 180 pounds.

All are believed to be enroute on I-80 to Hermon, Maine in a black 2004 Toyota RAV4 with Maine plates: 6228KJ.

Anyone seeing the suspects or vehicle should call 911.

Changing the AMBER Alerts Again

Ryan Westendorf — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:34:05 +0000

For some reason this morning the AMBER Alert parser went insane. It reposted every item in my RSS feed when there were only 3 updates. So, to keep that from happening again, I’ve added an RSS item to the left hand of every page on the site. I’m still working on how to refine the date so it isn’t all wonky, but it will work for now. As always, you can view the current active alerts by going to http://www.westendorf.us/special/emwin/amber.shtml and you can subscribe to an RSS feed of AMBER Alerts by subscribing to http://wxamberalert.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

Automatic AMBER Alert Posts

Ryan Westendorf — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 04:17:34 +0000

You may have noticed this evening a barrage of posts for an AMBER Alert in Texas. I’ve been able to upgrade how posts go out and now post them to my website and my RSS Feed. The only downside is that large states… like Texas… often cause several alerts to go out at once. Usually when I come back home, and if the AMBER Alert has been cleared, I’ll delete them from the front page, but they will still exist on the Archive site. As always, I have the ability to send these sorts of messages out by email, so let me know if you are interested in receiving that service.

AMBER Alerts work again

Ryan Westendorf — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:48:38 +0000

I just had an AMBER Alert come through the system from South Carolina. The email alerts and web posting to the website are working once again. To see current AMBER alert information you can visit www.westendorf.us/special/emwin/amber.shtml.

I plan to eventually open up the email alerts for anyone to subscribe to that wants them. Right now, I have them all sent to my cell phone to make sure the system is working. If you’d like to get AMBER Alerts for Iowa, visit the Wireless AMBER Alert System and sign up with your cell phone number.

Alerts are coming back online

Ryan Westendorf — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 11:29:21 +0000

Well, obviously, the upgrade didn't go so well. Apparently the new version has different wildcard matching so my alarms that used to work didn't anymore. Lucky for me, it only took 3 days to figure that out. I have most webpage stuff back to normal. Child Abduction Emergencies are being posted again as AMBER Alerts, but I can't get them to post if the office issues them under the Civil Emergency Message heading. I think it relates back to the problem with wildcards. Later this week when I'm up at a normal time, I'll reset the alarms that go to cell phones and pagers. I just don't want to do it now while normal people are asleep.

Email alerts are down

Ryan Westendorf — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:25:49 +0000

I'm updating the software that sends out weather and AMBER Alert messages and emails. Unfortunately, since the computer this software runs on is a little slow anyway, the upgrades will take me a little longer than the planned overnight outage. I'll post back when things are running again. This also will take down the PepperCam and live WX Warning Map linked to the right.

A bonus, 2 years later

Ryan Westendorf — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:37:35 +0000

I've always wanted to be able to send messages to my phone from the weather server but I didn't want to have to pay for the service. Well, this week I've been researching phones as my current phone is starting to get weird. Weird? Yes, weird, as in Pat Robertson and I'm going to randomly yell at you weird. Anyway, while I was on US Cellular's website I found out that contracts now have included email addresses. This was helping to steer me into renewing my contract. But first I decided to try sending email to the supposed email address I would get. Guess what? Yep, it works.

After that, it took about an hour of figuring out how to get around Mediacom's SMTP port blocking so I could send messages to myself. Now it works! And since I get unlimited incoming messages (or at least I think I do…next month's bill should answer that question), I don't have to worry about how many messages I get. So, now, for the curious, if you'd like messages sent to your cell phone, and your provider has an email address that I can send it to, let me know. I'd be happy to setup some alarms for you and alert you to whatever hazards for whatever counties you wish. That's right… all that right here under Ryan's Parasol of Protection™.

Also, hopefully in the next week I'll be getting some memory delivered from NewEgg which should improve the weather server's response time. With the computer running 24/7 with the server, message and map clients, and the webcam server, it occasionally gets bogged down and freaks out. Hopefully the memory will work out of the box.

* Iowa AMBER Alert Cancelled *

Ryan Westendorf — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 22:43:08 +0000

URGENT – CHILD AMBER ALERT
IOWA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFTEY
RELAYED BY NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DES MOINES IA
1022 PM CDT SUN JUN 18 2006

THE AMBER ALERT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. SUSPECT AND BOTH JUVINILES
HAVE BEEN LOCATED IN SIOUX CITY.

Visit http://www.westendorf.us/special/emwin/amber.shtml for updates…