[EAS] Progress Report on NWS Message Flooding

[Richard Rudman]

I wanted to update everyone on the list on discussions with NOAA NWS on the message flooding issue we raised in our Open Letter.

This past week Barry Mishkind and I talked to our NWS contact. We thanked him and NWS for circulating our open letter to all the Warning Coordination Meteorologists (WCM's) in the country. 

We talked about what to do next. Our NWS contact is going to talk to his colleagues about planning a face-to-face meeting in Washington sometime in the Spring. We and NWS do not think this needs to be a large meeting as long as we get key stakeholders there. The BWWG will be talking to key public and private EAS stakeholder groups about this.

Our NWS contact let us know that he appreciates the importance of radio in the warning process having spent a good portion of the past few weeks at his mother's home in New Jersey with no power and internet connectivity. 

I have been passing messages on this list on to NWS that have to do with the message flooding issue. If you have illustrations of this problem that you have not posted yet, we will forward them.

To sum up, NWS headquarters is deeply concerned about this issue and have already taken steps to let their WCM's know that they risk losing more broadcasters (and audience) if this continues.

Regards,

Richard Rudman
Core BWWG Member
CA SECC Vice Chair