[EAS] FEMA Test Today

[David Turnmire]

On 8/13/2013 7:41 AM, Tom Wilson wrote:
> Just returned from time off and noticed a CAP RMT on 8/7/13.  This is the first RMT we have received.  All others have been RWT's.  This was received on two Sage boxes.  Is this normal operation now?  A copy of the alert is below.
>
I suppose that depends where you are.  Idaho has been using a CAP server 
to send alerts... including RMTs... for something like a year.  Still 
working on being able to get them sent in a practical fashion via IPAWS, 
which has proven a challenge for a variety of reasons, in spite of 
having got FEMA approval some time back.  Of course, much of the reason 
for being interested in being able to send via IPAWS is really about 
getting to WEA, and in spite of the hype about CAP, there ARE 
differences between implementations.  What works for WEA and what works 
for EAS are enough different to complicate the user interface design for 
emergency management... and that is what we are working on now.  Part of 
the difference is in which alerts are accepted by WEA... and test alerts 
are not.

Our CAP server IS managing to forward incoming IPAWS alerts (which took 
a separate approval process).  That has proven occasionally useful for 
broadcasters successfully receiving the IPAWS alerts. If, for some 
"mystery reason" their decoder fails to get the alert direct from FEMA's 
server, it often DOES get the alert via ours. Redundancy is good!

Dave