[EAS] Tips and Quirks for Emergency Managers

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

Very nice, Sean.  One suggestion: when you say "There is no single, consistent message for each type of hazard..." you're right on the money.  A more productive approach, in my experience, has been to write templates for various protective action patterns rather than hazards.

While there are seemingly endless possible hazards out there, inevitably including ones we don't foresee, there are relatively few common protective-action patterns: evacuate; prepare to evacuate; shelter in place (with and without airborne threat precautions like turning off circulation fans); be on the lookout for something or someone; avoid a certain area; and so on.  (The CAP 1.2 "response" element values are a place one can start.)

Threat-driven planning is a commonplace of emergency management, but I've found writing message templates around protective actions, and filling in the particular hazard when it arises, is a more manageable approach.  It also guards against the temptation to under-specify the recommended action under time pressure.

Art
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From: eas-bounces at radiolists.net <eas-bounces at radiolists.net> on behalf of Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>

I started a document of Tips and Quirks for Emergency Managers using
IPAWS, EAS and WEA.

http://www.donelan.com/eas.html
http://www.donelan.com/IPAWS-EAS-CAP-TipsForEmergencyManagers.pdf

If you have additional tips and quirks about EAS or WEA that EMAs should
be aware of when using those systems please let me know.  Any oddball
things that happened in your area, or obscure interactions which sometimes
trip up EMAs trying to use the alerting and warning systems.

The goal is to move beyond "never use those systems" to "this is how to
use those systems."

Thanks.

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