For the past two years the Bath County Extension office has been working jointly with the area disaster and emergency services agency and the national weather service to develop educational material and early alert capabilities for rural residents, with a particular emphasis on our growing Amish population.  This effort is in direct response to the loss of life or five Amish children while trying to cross a flooded creek crossing.  The WARN committee has had a number of accomplishment including the development of educational material suitable to use in Amish and rural schools related to weather and weather emergencies, monthly newsletter articles and resources for use by agents, better relations with our Amish farmers and families and a new collaboration with Midland Radio for the development of a weather alert radio that meets the strict criteria of our Amish population.  The committee is working with our Amish leaders to evaluate two current versions of the weather radio to determine which style would be the most acceptable and useful version.  Once the version is selected, the committee will present this unit and our educational materials to Amish populations on a national level.  This program has already been presented in various conferences in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas and has been received with much enthusiasm.  The next step once the alert radio has been selected is to write the grant to distribute 300 of the units to residents in Bath County and then to make these units available on a national level.  The goal of this program and the WARN task-force is to provide education and resources that will prevent the loss of life in our local communities such as was experienced here in the past.