[EAS] Why "Voluntary"

[Bill Ruck]

This is something I learned from one of my colleagues.  Retired FCC 
District Director, PE and Esq.

He told me that the Communications Act of 1934 prohibits 
censorship.  And this is more than saying "no 13 bad words" but also 
forbids the federal government from telling any station what to do.

This is why CONELRAD, EBS, and EAS must be "in voluntary cooperation".

He believes that the presidential finding making his pronouncements 
mandatory could be protested and ultimately made null in 
court.  Likely the same with mandatory testing.

So, unlike many other countries, in the United States what the 
broadcasters do, and likely what the cell companies do, is VOLUNTARY.

And, as I have observed and commented on before, there is no carrot 
to induce a local government agency to use EAS and there is no stick 
in the event they choose not to use it.

I am very sympathetic to the NWS.  If they miss something they are 
hung out to dry.  If they alarm at every black cloud they are charged 
with flooding.  Best as I can tell, predicting the weather accurately 
is something less than 50%.  In my Naval service, they were called 
"weather guessers".

Maybe in some areas a statewide forecast is possible, but here in the 
People's Republic of San Francisco, there can be different weather in 
different parts of the city.  And SF City and County is only 49 
square miles.  How do you, first, accurately predict what going to 
happen in small areas, and, secondly, inform the right people that 
bad weather is coming?  Most of the weather on the Left Coast comes 
off of the Pacific Ocean and while there is radar and satellite they 
don't have the advantage of people nearby reporting weather as it moves in.

Since our home faces west at the Pacific Ocean we often see black 
clouds and heavy rain approaching when the weather forecast is "50% 
chance of rain".  We can see the cloud; we can see it on radar; but 
by the time fire hose amount of rain has passed by we then hear a 
Severe Weather Warning.  It's kinda late at that point for us.

Bill Ruck
Curmudgeon
San Francisco