D/FW Amber Plan


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About The Amber Plan

A Brief History of "The Amber Plan"

The Amber Plan was started in July 1997 to help safely recover missing children that police believe have been abducted. The Association of Radio Managers (ARMs) here in Dallas/Fort Worth created the program in memory of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman who was abducted and murdered in 1996. The Amber Plan has since spread across the nation and in April 2003 President George W. Bush signed The Amber Plan into national law.

The goal of the Amber Plan is the safe recovery of missing children that a law enforcement agency believes has been abducted and is in danger of serious harm or death. Missing adults, runaways, and children taken in child custody disputes usually do NOT qualify for Amber Plan activation.

How does the Amber Plan work? In Dallas/Fort Worth, for example, a law enforcement agency faxes an Amber Alert message to two radio stations in Dallas. Those stations will relay the message to other radio and television stations using the Emergency Alert System (EAS), the same system used to broadcast severe weather warnings and TV crawls.

Broadcasters agree to interrupt their programming and broadcast the Amber Alert message (and any updates) every half-hour for the next two hours or until the child is safely recovered.

Over the years, the Dallas/Fort Worth Amber Plan has expanded to virtually every law enforcement agency in north Texas, more than 40 radio stations and television stations in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.