Warning System

Roger Nelson has a simple and unequivocal message for the people of the year 12006: Don't dig here. As chief scientist of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Nelson oversees a cavernous salt mine that is the first geological lockbox for the "fiendishly toxic" detritus of nuclear weapons production: chemical sludge, lab gear and filters laced with tons of radioactive plutonium. Nearly half a mile underground, workers push waste drums into crystalline labyrinths that seem as remote as the moon.

Capitol Police said Thursday that they were looking at their early-warning system as part of the investigation into a nerve-gas scare that forced the evacuation of a Senate office building. Investigators have not determined whether the system malfunctioned during Wednesday evening's scare, police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said.

Nearly four dozen sirens have arrived in Humboldt County as part of a warning system for earthquake-generated waves along the north coast. Some of the 47 sirens will be placed along tsunami-prone areas and tied into a system that emergency officials are just beginning to create.

An interim tsunami early warning system is up and running and could provide an alert within 30 minutes of a quake, Indian officials announced. The temporary system uses 11 tidal gauges and seismic monitors at the Indian Meteorological Department to give a warning of an approaching wave, said P.S. Goel, secretary of the Department of Ocean Development. Officials said a comprehensive system would be in place within two years, covering both India's east and west coasts.

A warning from Hawaii flashes across computer screens -- a mammoth earthquake has been detected off Indonesia. As an alarm screams through the center just north of Bangkok, analysts punch in numbers, consult matrixes and, within 15 minutes, send off already prepared cellphone, telephone, fax and media messages.

A new system of lasers designed to warn pilots that they have entered restricted airspace over Washington can't be used on planes flying in or above the clouds, officials said Tuesday. The problem is, clouds cover most of the sky almost half the time in the nation's capital. The limitations of the laser warning system were evident during an airspace violation Monday, when military F-16s escorted a small plane from a restricted area to a nearby airport.

In the shadow of Mt. Rainier, a father pushes his son on a squeaky swing set. A small dog sleeps undisturbed in the middle of a dead-end road. The tall firs lining the main street whisper in the spring breeze. One day, the peaceful hush of this small town will be broken by a rumble that sounds like a thousand freight trains.

The U.S. government will launch a system next month that uses a ring of laser lights around the Washington area to alert all pilots who breach restricted airspace. Officials from the North American Aerospace Defense Command said the visual warning system was designed to quickly warn commercial, government and private pilots of planes and helicopters by shining alternating red and green lights at their aircraft.

A light on motorists' instrument panels will soon warn them when a tire is underinflated. The safety regulation, issued by the government Thursday, has its roots in the Firestone tire recall of 2000. It requires new passenger cars to have tire-pressure monitoring systems in place by the 2008 model year. Automakers probably will attach tiny sensors to each wheel that will signal if a tire falls 25% below the recommended inflation pressure.

Midway through "Wave That Shook the World," airing tonight as part of PBS' "Nova" science documentary series, an eyewitness to the Dec. 26 tsunami that killed more than 250,000 people says of the monstrous wall of water, "it had no mercy." Without warning gigantic waves rushed ashore, toppling buildings, tossing automobiles like toys and leaving wreckage so complete that disaster photographer Geoff Mackley likens it to the devastation left by an atomic bomb.