[EAS] Oroville Dam Evacuation...oh that was close

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

Sean said, "It shouldn't be viewed as an either/or, but rather all of the above -- EAS, WEA, Subscription-based alerts, telephone alerts, social media, traditional media, outdoor sirens, police/fire cars with loudspeakers...."

We may well think so, but many local EMs and law-enforcement folk obviously think otherwise.  We can wag a finger at them... but I don't recommend it.

Sean said, "And despite well-qualified incident commanders, once the decision is made to order a public alert (evacuation, shelter in place, whatever), people are still going to need to pull that three-ring binder off the self."

In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they aren't.  My experience has been that in the glare of the moment very few binders get pulled off the shelf.  I might wish it worked otherwise, but wishing doesn't make it so.

I think we have to take our cues from what actually happens.  We won't know exactly what happened in this case for a while yet, but clearly EAS didn't.

Art