ECHO will offer information to help you and your family respond to a major health or safety emergency in Minnesota. The type of emergency will determine how that information is delivered.

In a local emergency ECHO Phone, Fax and Web will provide details about the type of emergency and what you can do to protect yourself and your family.

Examples of local emergencies include the accidental release of dangerous chemicals, or multiple illnesses linked to a home, school or business.

In a statewide emergency, ECHO TV will also broadcast live.

Examples of statewide emergencies include the outbreak of a highly contagious disease like SARS or a man-made attack such as a bomb explosion.

During a local emergency in Minnesota:

Call 1-888-883-8831—ECHO Phone
Emergency information will be recorded on this line and updated regularly. You can choose from 10 languages (Spanish, Hmong, Somali, Lao, Khmer, Vietnamese, Russian, Arabic, Oromo and English). Calls are free from anywhere in Minnesota.

Contact community leaders.
Dozens of community organizations will help ECHO spread emergency information. ECHO Email will send out email emergency updates to these community partners. They will pass along the emergency instructions using the methods that work best to reach people within their communities.

Log-on to www.echominnesota.org.
Read the same emergency information offered through ECHO Phone and ECHO Email
in Hmong, Khmer, Lao, Somali, Spanish, Vietnamese and English.

During a statewide emergency in Minnesota get information from all of the above, plus:

Turn on the public television station in your area. ECHO TV will broadcast live in a statewide crisis. The same emergency instructions reported in English on television will be repeated in Hmong, Khmer, Lao, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese on ECHO TV.

ECHO TV airs on Twin Cities Public Television (tpt)-Minnesota Channel 17 in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. Learn how to access the Minnesota Channel In the metro if you have cable or satellite television. In a statewide emergency, live broadcasts will originate at tpt's studios in St. Paul. Public television stations throughout Minnesota can broadcast the same newscasts.

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