[EAS] False EAS Test Startles Guam Residents

[Sean Donelan]

On Thu, 17 Aug 2017, Clay Freinwald wrote:
> Trust me, we have discussed this issue - in significant detail - here in
> Washington State for the last 20+ years and feel our position is very sound.

And there are 49 other states, the federal district and 5 territories. Its 
amazing how differently they each organize their state/local EAS 
operations.  Just by coincidence, I would think there would be more 
simularities.  What works in the State of Washington apparently doesn't 
work the same in the other states and territories.

At the federal level, all EAS activations are done by government agencies 
(i.e. NOAA and FEMA/White House), while almost all tests are done by EAS 
participants.  NOAA issues over 90,000 EAS activations a year, very 
quickly with only a few mistakes each year. In some states/local areas, 
local broadcasters also act as back-up activation sources in case the NOAA 
transmitters fail in an area.  NOAA contacts the local primary station, 
and asks the operator-on-duty to activate the station's EAS equipment and 
transmit the weather warning (in theory).

At the state/territory level, its a mixed bag.  Some states contact a 
local broadcaster to activate the EAS, other states use their own EAS and 
CAP equipment, other states don't seem to know what EAS or CAP is or don't 
have the money to operate their own EAS and CAP equipment.

At the local level, its much rarer for government agencies to have their 
own EAS or CAP equipment. More local governments are buying WEA, SMS and 
reverse 911 systems; but they don't always seem to understand how those 
system interact with EAS/IPAWS resulting in most of the recent problems.
And as happened in Gatlinburg, TN; when the internet is down, local 
agencies often don't know how or have the equipment to activate the EAS 
locally because they've never been trained or tested it.

> With that being said - I completely agree with the following -
>
> Is there train-the-trainer material how to teach alert originators, and
> showing trainers how to set up the system for training?
>
> Thankfully, in our state, CAP based systems (our own or FEMA/IPAWS) have
> 'front end' systems that make message origination a whole lot easier.
> The issue here is that Public Warning -MUST- be a part of the training
> routine for all entities that are task with this responsibility.

There is a lot of variability in the CAP-based alert origination systems. 
Some CAP-based alert vendors have atrocious user interfaces which may be 
the source of many "operator errors."  Most customers buy the systems for 
reverse-911 and subscription SMS alerts; and the IPAWS/WEA interface is an 
add-on. I can sometimes guess the alert vendor based on the operator 
errors in WEA and EAS alerts I see through IPAWS.