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

[Sean Donelan]

On Tue, 14 Feb 2017, Mike McCarthy wrote:
> Why can't Twitter, Facebook, et. al. partner with IPAWS and relay from
> there? It takes time to engage each app. That would be time wasted IMHO...

Ahh, the other problem... Alert origination software (vendors?)

Avoiding vendors by name, but having looked into the backstory of several 
public alerting mishaps, often operator error is blamed but there is a 
lot of duct tape, confusing and ugly software interfaces. The public 
information officers don't really have a fighting chance. You can send a 
tweet on your iPhone.

While the incident commander makes the initial decision, they don't push 
the alert keyboards themselves.  Large OEMs like New York City can do it 
themselves, but expecting small emergency management agencies to know how 
use IPAWS and the tricky oddities may not be rational.

Although both the NWS (unfunded mandate) and local EMAs (too much federal 
control) object, the National Weather Service has people all over the 
country trained on procedures for issuing public alerts.  That doesn't 
mean the NWS makes the decision to issue the alert. The local incident 
commander still has that authority and responsibility.  Should the NWS be 
authorized to relay *all* types of public alerts to *all* channels on 
behalf of local authorities.

A rural county EMA could contact the local NWS office, and ask them to 
activate all warning channels.  Large EMAs could do it themselves.