[EAS] CAP EAS Geography Problem

[Ham, Gary (CTR)]

Folks,

As one of the builders of IPAWS, I can assure you that you can craft and send messages beyond borders. The issue is not an IPAWS-OPEN issue. Authorizations beyond your normal borders can be set.  The question is one of authority.  Local alerting is not a FEMA mission.  So FEMA must defer to the State alerting Authorities to tell them what their local authorities can do in the way of geography. So FEMA does what states allow. Counties on a border may have to ask for authority from their own and from the neighboring state. IPAWS allows this sort of setup, if authority on both sides is granted. Sometime the bureaucracy is hard, but the capability is there.

So, bureaucracy is hard. You need to warn your neighbor, but do not have the authority to warn their public.  Even without public authority, you still have authority to warn your neighbor's emergency management agency using a CAP Private message (or Public Message).  This is done by putting your neighbor's IPAWS COG Identity into the addresses block of your CAP message. Your software vendor should provide you with this so-called cog-to-cog messaging capability. It is built into IPAWS, but not all vendors use it effectively. If it is there, you can warn your neighbor emergency manager privately using an IPAWS CAP message.  Your neighbor can re-release that message (with a new ID and the neighbors geography) as a public message for areas within your neighbor's authority.  The good alert origination vendors have a capability built in that takes advantage of this IPAWS feature. Get yours to explain how they do it.

Vr,

Gary Ham (CTR)
Contractor via Arc Aspicio
FEMA/NCP IPAWS
Systems Architect, IPAWS-OPEN 
Mobile Phone: 703-899-6241