[EAS] Sufolk Co, NY EAS mishap

[Lucero, Mark]

All,
I've been following the discussion here and there is some good insight mixed in with the jokes and jabs.  We had a call with Suffolk County, their alerting software vendor, NY DHSES, FEMA Region 2, and a few other parties interested in deflecting blame (haha).  Here's what I learned and where I believe we should take the next steps:

What happened:
1. Suffolk county did not make a mistake in their initial alert.  They intended to send a WEA to a polygon enclosing Fire Island and portions of Long Island coast.  They intended to send an EAS message to the entire county.
2. The CAP message was formatted properly, addressed required fields for EAS and WEA, and contained actionable information
3. The WEA text was: "Due to the severe weather a voluntary evacuation of Fire Island is ordered by 1pm 9/4/16"
4. The EAS text to speech would have rendered just as John Crosby noted in his email along this same subject thread
5. The county received calls and observed that the EAS text crawl only presented the "scary" information from the CAP message, and not the content from the <description> element.
6. There were no complaints any of the other alerting methods used (WEA, Twitter, Facebook, Reverse 911, Email, RSS)

The mishap (if you want to call it that):
1. Current FCC rules are ambiguous regarding TV text crawl
2. Due to ambiguity in rules, EAS manufacturers may implement differently or TV/cable may configure differently
3. The county (and every other alerting authority using CAP) does not know with certainty how the EAS message will appear when relayed to the public, or if it will be relayed at all

The next steps (one man's opinion):
1. Fix the FCC rules (this work is ongoing) to provide CERTAINTY
2. Convene the EAS-CAP Industry Group to address the ambiguity now to provide CERTAINTY
3. Reach out to state SECCs and state EMAs to adopt a policy for what alerts will be relayed and what alerts will not WITH CERTAINTY
4. Educate alerting authorities on how their alerts will appear when relayed to the public WITH CERTAINTY

This problem affects all stakeholders, the blame rests with all stakeholders, and any solution will require the support of all stakeholders.

v/r
Mark A. Lucero, CISSP
Chief, IPAWS Engineering
FEMA National Continuity Programs
202-646-1386 (desk)
202-257-1364 (mobile)
mark.lucero at fema.dhs.gov
ipaws at fema.dhs.gov