[EAS] FW: Severe weather drills

[Adrienne Abbott]

Mike--
Yes, we get avalanches and blizzards but blizzards are considered "normal"
winter weather here and our WFO's don't issue EAS activations for blizzards.
The USFS is in charge of avalanches and they seldom initiate EAS for
avalanche warnings. Avalanches are a normal part of winter and USFS, the
highway department and the ski resorts all do avalanche control when
situations warrant and there's plenty of advance publicity about the
problem. And rather than an avalanche warning, these agencies would issue an
EVI  if there was a serious avalanche potential. Unfortunately, EVI is an
event code that gets used a couple times a year in our Operational Areas and
I certainly wouldn't want to do a live code test on that one. 

The NWS issued so many Flash Flood and Flood warnings last summer that many
stations reprogrammed their equipment to ignore them because
viewers/listeners were complaining and EAS burn-out was a serious problem.
Most of those activations were issued for remote, rural areas where few
people were affected. NWS was issuing multiple warnings so quickly that the
equipment couldn't keep up and that creates a logging problem for our
stations. At one point, 11 SVR's and FFW's were issued in a one hour period
and there were multiple activations issued for what appeared to be the same
event. In addition, the radio and TV stations with news staff were covering
the few events that affected populated areas or major roadways so the EAS
activations had little value. "Message Flooding" as Richard Rudman calls it,
was a major problem in both Nevada and California last summer. 

At the height of the monsoon season we also had multiple AMBER Alerts--I
think a total of four in a two-week period and a couple of fire related
EVI's. Yes, you can have weather situations that go from fire to flood in an
afternoon. There were no complaints from the stations that their EAS
equipment wasn't working or was improperly programmed! 

We work with NWS during Severe Weather Week--ours is in June--to remind the
public about potential flooding problems and I send the stations reminders
in my weekly EAS reports to check the programming in their EAS equipment to
make sure it is updated and ready to handle weather warnings according to
their station policy. 

Yes, I agree that in spite of the various audio problems the National EAS
Test showed that the system worked but the FCC isn't sharing the results so
we (SECC Chairs) don't know where our weak spots are so there's nothing we
can do to fix them. The best we can do is stay in touch with our stations,
solicit feedback and be available to assist with any problems or questions
they might have. I think that's a whole lot more effective than a live code
test. 

Adrienne Abbott
Nevada EAS Chair
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Aren't there avalanche or blizzard warnings in Nevada and Washington as well
as California?  Or Flash Flood warnings?  Every one of those is just as
local in nature, equally devastating, and deadly for those in the path of
the event as a tornado or tidal wave.