[EAS] CAP EAS sent in SF Bay Area Sunday

[Larry Wood]

On Sunday the EAS was activated for an EVI alert due to a fire on Mt. Diablo in Contra Costa County. KQED-FM is the local LP2.
The following was received in my SAGE EAS unit...

From...   CAP Server: IPAWS, CAP Reference ID: cwsdo.CCCOES at webform@alertingsolutions.com,2446405,2013-09-08T16:50:47-07:00

Alert Received at 09/08/13 16:52:00 from CAP Matched filter OTHERS MED, Received from CAP.
EOM Received at 09/08/13 16:52:39.
The Civil Authorities have issued an Immediate Evacuation for Contra Costa, CA beginning at 4:50 pm and ending at 5:50 pm (KQED FM). Due to a FIRE HAZARD an immediate evacuation has been ordered for Oak Hill Ln at Curry Canyon and Curry Pt. Please evacuate to Diablo View School in Clayton, 3 0 0 Diablo View Ln., park your cars at City Community Park on Regency Drive. Leave now by car. Go by way of Morgan Territory. Take only those essential items you have ready and can carry with you. Pets must be in a carrier or on a leash. Lock your windows and doors as you leave. Stay off the phone unless you need to report a life- threatening emergency at your location. However, if you are physically unable to leave your home unassisted, call 9-1-1 for help.

CAP description:
The Civil Authorities have issued an Immediate Evacuation for Contra Costa, CA beginning at 4:50 pm and ending at 5:50 pm (KQED FM). Due to a FIRE HAZARD an immediate evacuation has been ordered for Oak Hill Ln at Curry Canyon and Curry Pt. Please evacuate to Diablo View School in Clayton, 3 0 0 Diablo View Ln., park your cars at City Community Park on Regency Drive. Leave now by car. Go by way of Morgan Territory. Take only those essential items you have ready and can carry with you. Pets must be in a carrier or on a leash. Lock your windows and doors as you leave. Stay off the phone unless you need to report a life- threatening emergency at your location. However, if you are physically unable to leave your home unassisted, call 9-1-1 for help.

As far as I know, California has not revised its state plan to include CAP as a standard protocol. We have never received any state tests or other indication that CAP was going to be used by the state. Obviously, I programed my SAGE unit to respond to CAP if it met the filter criteria, which it did in this case. The LP1 sent the alert about 5 minutes after us and they recorded their own audio for the alert. Their recorded audio was very clear. The 'Text to Speech' in our alert was about 75% intelligible. At the end, however, it failed to convert what was supposed to be the emergency phone number 911. The text shows it as 9-1-1 and the 'Text to Speech' converter in the SAGE spoke it as "September first 2001."  It did correctly speak the address '3 0 0 Diablo View Ln' as "three zero zero Diablo View Lane." It looks like there needs to be some training for the people who write the CAP messages.
If California is now using CAP, the state should let us know so that we can train the operators. Our audience might have been better served if we had killed the CAP alert and then sent the alert originated by the LP1

Thanks,

Larry Wood CPBE,
KQED-FM