SAN CLEMENTE : San Onofre Alarm to Be Tested Wednesday

In an effort to inform residents about the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station’s annual emergency siren test, Southern California Edison recently sent 54,600 postcards to households in a 10-mile radius around the plant.

An additional 10,000 brochures were taken to hotels and parks. And about 1,700 thick informational packets were sent to teachers so that they could educate their students about the meaning of the siren, which will sound Wednesday at 10 a.m. and again at noon.

Yet there are always those who don’t get the message.

Last year, local police received dozens of phone calls from residents who ranged from the curious to the terrified.

In a bizarre occurrence the year before, a man who was apparently disoriented by the loud noise ran across the freeway to complain to a California Highway Patrol officer and was struck and killed by a car. It was the first fatality in the 10 years the company has been conducting the tests.

The sirens have been known to go off accidentally. Although it hasn’t happened this year, the alarms were inadvertently sounded on one occasion in 1990 and another in 1991, creating panic for hundreds of people.

Edison is required by federal law to sound the alarm. But company officials say they won’t be able to reach everyone. “No communications effort is ever going to get 100% saturation,” said Dave Barron, Edison spokesman. “But we have to go beyond a reasonable effort to inform people about the test.”

Barron said there are a few critical things to remember when the test sirens go off Wednesday:

* Don’t clog up emergency lines by calling 911.

* A test is practice for the real thing. If there is a serious accident at the nuclear plant, residents should immediately check their radio or television for emergency information.