[EAS] No TOE for WEA

[David Turnmire]

On 2/20/2014 7:55 AM, Rod Zeigler wrote:
> ...WEA is not under the purview of the SECC's, as it is fed from the
> Federal level with no State input abilities.
> So, as far as EAS and it's various associated groups, WEA does not exist
> in our realm of responsibility, for all practical purposes, and we need
> not concern ourselves with it.
>
Not sure where you got that idea.... especially about the no "State 
input abilities".  That part is certainly incorrect.  It can, in fact, 
be "input" at a local level, such as your local county emergency 
management.  The jurisdiction wanting it, needs to have an MOA with 
FEMA.  For jurisdictions below state level, the state has to "sign off" 
on the local jurisdiction's request.  For some states, as I understand 
it, their state constitution effectively mandates their state to approve 
this, but from FEMA's perspective, the state needs to approve local use.

A number of states are already using IPAWS... including WEA.  Idaho has 
had authorization from FEMA to do so for some time now and is in the 
final stages of working out some technical issues with our software 
before "going operational".  I have personally generated some RWTs via 
IPAWS and our next month's RMT will likely be done via IPAWS.  Such test 
alerts aren't handled by WEA, but once we are satisfied with how our 
software is working, we'll be generating all of our civil alerts via 
IPAWS (in addition to our local CAP service and legacy system) and all 
those supported by WEA will be sent that way as well (just an extra 
check box in our software).

We have recently received our first request from a local county for WEA 
access, and as this will establish precedents in our state, we are 
working out the policies and procedures now.  As for SECC's involvement, 
yeah, technically WEA is outside of SECC's area of responsibility.  
But... in our state at least... our SECC tries to keep aware of 
alternate emergency notifications systems.  This is particularly true 
for those using CAP... that IS the idea behind CAP after all... allowing 
emergency management to enter data once, and distribute the 
notifications by multiple mechanisms.

The various state entities, plus NOAA weather, that are involved with 
emergency messaging are all represented on our SECC and we take 
advantage of that opportunity to try to maximize service to the public 
and minimize the burden on emergency management.  In our case, the same 
state agency is responsible for dispatching state police, putting Amber 
alerts on dynamic traffic signs and lottery sales displays, and... 
initiating EAS and WEA messages.  They are well trained and obviously on 
duty 24/7.  For redundancy, we of course have some backup CACs for EAS/WEA.

Dave