[EAS] Observations and a question

[Richard_Rudman]

Gregory/All:

You pose a good question, and as one of the core members of the Broadcast Warning Working Group (BWWG) that hosts the EAS Forum, I'll try to answer you, and also answer some other questions -- some that have been asked and others that should be.

Earlier today I had a phone conversation with Barry Mishkind, another BEWWG core member. I offered the opinion that the next posting I might do on the EAS Forum website might be entitled, "We've Only Just Begun." When I got online tonight, a stellar contributor to the current EAS body of knowledge, Ed Czarnecki, pretty much said the same thing on this list.

Along with "We've Only Just Begun," now that we have officially entered CAP Compliance for EAS, all most of us have or will see for some time will be CAP tests that come out of FEMA over IPAWS OPEN. That will be, to say the least, a bit frustrating for people who have agonized about the cost of installing CAP-EAS equipment. For those people, please have some patience. The benefits of CAP-EAS to a public at risk may not really start to make a difference for years.

The really hard work for state and local committees must begin -- enticing local and state emergency management to take the FEMA IPAWS OPEN online course, pass the test, get certified to originate through IPAWS OPEN and acquire a proper emergency management warning origination tool (often a software program).

A few states Washington State is my favorite example) are years ahead of us both in state implementation and state implementation growing pains. All valuable lessons for those of us who have yet to deal with state CAP servers, state distribution, and, dare I say, backup systems to avoid single point failure of CAP over IP.

Some things to keep in mind as I see them in my personal quartz crystal ball:

1. The FCC has not yet issued their report on the National Test last Fall. Expect more discussion on this list as that plays out.
2. Elements of Part 11 that their report will almost certainly talk about are likely to be re-written. Again, that should play out here.
3. FEMA has not settled on their IPAWS OPEN test schedule. We will let you know what happens.
4. States need to decide if they are really serious about public warnings (not just EAS). We can be a key sounding board for this effort.
5. The National Weather Service needs to tells us what their CAP plans are for EAS. We will let you know whatever we can find out about this.
6. AMBER Coordinators need to be educated on how they can improve those warnings with CAP enhancements. With our partners, NASBA and NAB, we want to work on this.
7. Elements of CAP-EAS like Text-To-Speech, attached audio, video, and graphics files have to be fully described and tested. 

Keeping up with all this for the average person is next to impossible. One of the best ways I try to keep is to watch this list and one other as threads and issues bubble up when something either happens or does not happen.

Something to watch for:  We want to stand up a BWWG Speaker Bureau as a resource for SBE Chapters, emergency managers, and other parties interested in knowing what CAP-EAS can do to improve warnings designed to save more lives and property. Stay tuned here for developments.

This list will settled down once EAS-CAP compliance birth pangs ease. Some of the current "bubble-up" activity is a result of some people who were not following the lists weeks or months ago, and probably not reading the parent website for this list, the EAS Forum.

So, for you and everyone this list and the website will keep going doing what it has been doing as a cooperative way to share information a lot of us need.

You are not going to see this information in much of the trade press as fast as you will see it here -- the exception being Barry Mishkind's BDR.

So, the CAP info reservoir is here - we all carry water to it and draw water from it. From time-to-time it overflows its banks -- now is one of those times.

Richard Rudman
BWWG Core Member
Vice Chair, CA SECC

On Jul 3, 2012, at 6:55 PM, Gregory Muir wrote:

> So, am I in the wrong place and should I be looking somewhere else?