[EAS] What am I doing wrong?

[Sean Donelan]

On Thu, 28 Jul 2016, Clay Freinwald wrote:
>> 0% of EAS has been used so the President can address the county
>> 100% of EAS has been used for something else.

The Eisenhower National Defense Highway System has never been used
by the military to defend against an attack on United States territory.
Nevertheless, the Interstate Highway System is very useful for lots
of things. Some historians think the Eisenhower's "national defense" 
justification for the Interstate highway system was just a political
ruse for a massive infrastructure project that was desperately needed
for other purposes.

I think the FCC (and FEMA, and NWS) recognize that the EAS is more useful
for state and local emergencies than a theoretical national emergency.
The feds repeately ask for input how make it as useful as they can for 
state and local authorities.

Just like some states do a much better job maintaining roads and 
infrastructure; some states have well-funded EMA's and public alerting
infrastructure.  FCC, FEMA, NWS uses their Federal authorities (i.e. the 
"National Defense") to support a nation-wide, minimal system that state 
and local officials can leverage and expand for state and local purposes.

Some states use it, other states don't (and in one state I think won't).

Even in states with well-funded EMA's, they can only afford to buy state 
emergency alert equipment like Comlabs EMNET for a fraction of media 
outlets. I don't think any LPFM stations have an EMNET terminal 
installed, anywhere in the country.  Those states still rely on the 
"mandatory" FCC emergency alert rules and lower-cost (lower 
functionality) systems to cover the rest of the mass media
facilities.

Although some commercial weather companies regularly gripe that 
the Federal government shouldn't be competing with private weather 
companies; and lobby congress to eliminate government funding of public 
weather warnings; 90% of local public warnings still originate from 
Federal sources (i.e. National Weather Service).