By Joe Milicia
The Associated Press

CLEVELAND - Nine counties have started the Northern Ohio Amber Alert system, unwilling to wait for a state missing child program to begin next year. The counties have used their system to rescue a 5-year-old girl.

The regional alert system is the fourth in Ohio and will eventually be used in coordination with a state Amber Alert.

Gov. Bob Taft signed an executive order in August creating a statewide system to broadcast information quickly about a child abduction by a stranger.

His order requires the system be in place by January.

Arnie Stanko, police chief of suburban Waite Hill, who led the organization of the Northern Ohio Amber Alert, said it's unlikely the state system will be operating by then.

"We weren't concerned that it was going to overlap or conflict because we wanted something in place until the state decided what it was going to do," Chief Stanko said Wednesday.

Once the state system is operating, it will be up to law enforcement agencies to make an alert regional or expand it statewide if a suspect is believed to be traveling, Attorney General Betty Montgomery said.

Details on the state plan are being worked out by a 25-member task force due to report to Taft this week.

The system would include radio and television broadcasts and messages on roadside signs.

The Northern Ohio Amber Alert was used to recover a missing girl in Maple Heights on Oct. 23, the same day that authorities completed training on the system.

Maple Heights Police Chief Rich Maracz said the department was inundated with calls immediately after the alert went out.

"It worked perfectly," Chief Maracz said. "It put us almost in touch step by step as the suspect was moving through town."

The Amber Alert system is named for a Texas girl who was murdered in 1996.

At least 14 other states have a similar alert system.

Ohio also has regional Amber Alerts in the Cincinnati area, the Columbus area and Tuscarawas County.