[EAS] The EAS SPW issue and EPI: Time for a national discussion?

[Richard Rudman]

Greetings:

Initial feedback from the Greater Boston area is that no SPW Shelter In Place warnings were issued using EAS. We do know that social media and illuminated road signs and other means were used to get the word out, so why not EAS? We also do not know yet if an SPW went out to cell phones using WEA (formerly CMAS).

If these early reports are verified, this is clear case when all possible warning systems, including the EAS, should have been employed to warn the Greater Boston public to Shelter In Place. The timing of the event should have led to a regional and event-specific EAS SPW that would have asked commuters outside the city to not drive or commute into the affected area.

The entire emergency management community has still not identified the entire range of emergency public information tools (EPI) as resources to be managed along with SWAT, Engine companies, food, water and the like. Some thankfully have gotten the message. For an example of what such a warning might look and sound like, here is an example from 2010 from the emergency management agency in Nassau County that has it right:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A76S1xuaRIM

When I talk to emergency management groups about public warnings, here is my first question: At any time during an emergency, is there something you want the public to do or not do that will help? The events that unfolded this past week in Boston that led to the Shelter In Place decision seem to indicate that a national conversation on major change in how all emergency management agencies treat EPI must begin. EPI, including EAS, must be a first level top-of-mind forethought in EM decision making, not an afterthought.

The entire Incident Command System (ICS) needs to bring EPI in as a core resource to be managed. My personal opinion is that the classic ICS divisions of Finance, Operations, Logistics and Planning do not clearly and cleanly do this in many local, regional and state emergency management agencies. As many of you know, there is indeed EPI training in the National Incident Management System (NIMS). Some will argue that this is enough. I respectfully disagree.
 
The United States still does not have a unified and coherent public warning strategy, a missing link that my fellow founding Trustees of the Partnership For Public Warning identified when we came together after the events of September 11, 2001.

If after action reports from the Greater Boston indeed show that EAS was not used to issue the Shelter In Place warning, it is time for the entire emergency management community to take to heart and really put in practice the name of FEMA's still new protocol -- IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert and Warning System).

All that said, the issuance of the Shelter in Place that was issued in the Boston area itself will be questioned at the highest levels (probably and somewhat ironically starting on Monday morning).  

Support as well as opposing views on all public warning issues are welcome as long as they stay on topic and do not stray into political, religious or ethnic paths. Exchanging information and learning from each other are what this list is all about.

Regards,

Richard Rudman
Core Member, The Broadcast Warning Working Group
Vice Chair, CA SECC