Under the agreement, AEN's pioneering Internet- and satellite-based service will distribute live-video storm updates by National Hurricane Center forecasters during U.S. landfalling hurricanes and when other events warrant.

These crucial video briefings by the nation's leading experts will be available to anyone with an Internet connection -- without charge, in real time and in their entirety via media websites that subscribe to the AEN network. Television outlets may subscribe to the feeds as well.

For the first time, emergency managers, other government officials, utility executives, operators of health-care centers, corporate managers, and individual residents will have full and unedited access to this vital information direct from the nation's official source of hurricane information.

"During a landfalling tropical cyclone, it is extremely important to quickly reach as many people as possible with critical life-saving information," said Bill Read, director, NOAA National Hurricane Center. "America's Emergency Network will help us do that and we are happy to partner with them in this effort."

The National Hurricane Center's video storm updates, which occur on a regular schedule during hurricane threats, will be broadcast live over AEN's robust and reliable Internet- and satellite-based network. Other special NHC events may also be streamed live over the AEN system. All feeds will be directly available through the websites of leading newspapers and other AEN partners.

"In the past, not all updates and briefings from the Hurricane Center reached the public," said Bryan Norcross, AEN's president and chief executive officer and the former hurricane analyst for the CBS television network.

"Government officials, corporate managers, and affected residents have had to hope that their local media outlets would carry portions of the Hurricane Center's announcements -- and often they haven't," Norcross said. "Now, anyone who can connect to the Internet will have full access to the latest information."

AEN was created by Norcross and Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center, to improve the nation's disaster-warning system and facilitate the transmission of vital emergency information. The system is designed to function during any emergency -- including weather events, transportation accidents, health emergencies, and outbreaks of violence.

AEN's broadcast system provided the public with access to official briefings from the Florida Division of Emergency Management in Tallahassee and emergency operations centers in the Village of Islamorada and some of Florida's largest counties -- including Miami-Dade, Broward, Brevard, and Duval counties -- during the hurricane season of 2008.

"AEN has already been recognized by state and local officials as a key element of the emergency management system and we are extremely proud to be partnering with the National Hurricane Center," Norcross said. "We view this as a signal achievement -- and we look forward to making other announcements as the year progresses."