GloCo Prosecutors Get In The Weather Biz For Safety's Sake

By David Madden

WOODBURY, N.J., (CBS) -- You might be surprised to hear that prosecutors in South Jersey are working to set up weather stations.

They're not looking to become amateur meteorologists, but they did recently erect the first of up to 9 stations funded with a homeland security grant. It's now in operation at Gloucester County's Dream Park in Logan Township.

Given the Conrail derailment and chemical leak three years ago that led to the evacuation of half of Paulsboro, it's thought putting these stations along the freight line between Camden and Salem will help determine conditions if there's another accident.

Bill Donovan with the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office described it as "basically a 30 foot tower with a solar panel" in an interview with KYW Newsradio. "It has wind speed, direction, humidity, temperature and rainfall gauges."

Climatologists at Rutgers will collect the data and maintain the stations. Three more set ups are expected to be completed in the next few weeks.

"If there's a release we'll already have the data," Donovan said. "We could use that to do plume modeling, evacuation and things like that based on the data we already have rather than setting up equipment after the fact."

At the time of the accident, the closest operating weather station was at Philadelphia International Airport. Emergency crews had to borrow a portable weather station during the emergency, which lasted a few days.