There’s a version of a bad day in the Brazos Valley where the cell towers are jammed, the internet is out and the power is off. Maybe it’s ice in February. A line of storms in the spring. High winds. A hurricane that comes farther inland than anyone expected. On that day, or that night, one of the few things that still will be working is a broadcast transmitter.
Unlike streaming, over-the-air broadcasting does not depend on internet or cellular service. It travels from a broadcast tower directly to any television or radio within range. A car radio in a driveway. A battery-powered radio in a hall closet. No password, no subscription and no working phone is required. And that reach is important for our region. When it comes to broadband internet service, half the Brazos Valley counties are among the 50 most underserved in Texas: Burleson, Leon, Milam and Robertson.
September is National Preparedness Month, and this year’s theme is “Americans Stand Ready.” The idea is simple: prepare before the emergency, because once it arrives, your options get smaller. A prepared community begins with each of us doing our part. That applies to individuals and households. To businesses and organizations. And to KAMU.
KAMU-TV and KAMU-FM are licensed to Texas A&M University and are a part of the federal Emergency Alert System, with equipment that receives and relays official warnings from the National Weather Service, as well as from state and federal authorities. KAMU also is the primary broadcast outlet for Texas A&M’s Code Maroon audio and video alerts over 90.9 FM and our PBS station. And we serve as the backup path for Wireless Emergency Alerts, helping those messages reach carriers even when the terrestrial network is down.
But an emergency system is only as reliable as every link in the chain. For years, KAMU had backup power for its transmitters, but not for master control – the programming and technology command center where our television and radio signals originate. That meant during a prolonged power failure, the equipment capable of sending our signal across the Brazos Valley could keep running, but the equipment needed to put local information on that signal could not.
That vulnerability is now gone, thanks to Wayne Pecena, KAMU’s associate director of information technology, who has worked at the station for 53 years. Pecena prepared the successful application that secured up to $486,000 through the Next Generation Warning System grant, a FEMA-funded program administered by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help public media stay on the air during emergencies. KAMU was one of three stations in Texas to receive the funding, alongside KLRN in San Antonio and KEDT in Corpus Christi.
The grant made the new backup power at our Hensel Park facility possible and is helping strengthen the resiliency of KAMU’s signal origination, as well as add redundancy to our transmission and emergency alerting systems in the Brazos Valley. Grants like it have helped KAMU build much of the infrastructure that would be difficult to fund through an annual operating budget alone. But that landscape has changed. Last summer, Congress rescinded federal funding for public media, costing KAMU roughly one-third of its operating budget. We will continue pursuing other grants and additional sources of support, but the resources that helped make projects like this possible are no longer assured.
No one knows when that bad day may come. But we can decide how well we prepare for it. Make a plan. Build an emergency kit that includes a battery-powered radio. And know where you will turn for information if the power, internet and cell service go down. Learn how to prepare at ready.gov.
If that day comes, we intend to still be here. Thank you for helping make that possible.
Interested in learning how you can support KAMU? Visit this web page.
Published: September 2026
Written by: KAMU General Manager Kelly Brown
