[EAS] WEA used in NYC bombings

[Sean Donelan]

On Mon, 26 Sep 2016, Clay Freinwald wrote:
>> Remember that there are no prediction technology that we can integrated
> into EAS.    For those of you that look at the Event Code-EQW - and think
> 'Warning'  ....Sorry.  This code was created, at the request of the
> Washington State SECC (and others) as a means for dealing with the events
> -AFTER the quake.
>
>> The recent Cascadia exercise demonstrated that EAS and the majority of
> broadcast stations, as well as WEA will be silenced.     This is why we are
> now working on EPIS (Emergency Public Information System) that will enable
> EOC's to access certain broadcast transmitters for the purpose of providing
> the public with vital information.   We project that only a handful of radio

The Emergency Broadcast System was primarily for the post-catastrophe,
recovery phase to stich together the remnants of functioning 
communciations networks.  The old civil defense reports say attack 
warning, but the government research reports were mostly about 
reconstituting the nation afterwards.

The weather warnings and other public alerting stuff was added later. 
Cable systems franchise override systems provided similar access for local 
franchise authorities.

The challenge for EBS, EPIS or any other post-catastrophe system is 
justifying its maintenance during the once in 100/500/1000 years use. 
Systems that aren't regularly used, rarely work during a catastophe.

I'm not trying to discourge people working on EPIS.  It would be very 
valuable during the recovery phase of any large catastrophe.  Watching 
what happened after Katrina and other regional disasters, leveraging 
resources from the rest of the country was very important.  The satellite 
feed translators were back on the air relatively quickly, i.e. a few days 
to a week or two.