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

[Sean Donelan]

On Tue, 14 Feb 2017, Botterell, Arthur at CalOES wrote:
> That's an interesting point.  Under NIMS, and its precursor SEMS here 
> in California, authority properly rests with the Incident Commander in 
> the field.  But, trapped in its heritage, EAS origination in particular 
> tends to be located in an EOC or some other protected "bunker."  The 
> connection between the IC and IPAWS is generally under-developed.  ICs 
> are generally not schooled in the when, why or how of public warning. 
> Instead, somebody back in the bunker, who may not be in the chain of 
> command at all, and who may be only slightly better trained in this 
> stuff, is expected to decide those things.

Should that be a problem?  Incident commanders also don't fly the 
helicopter, drive the fire truck, answer the 9-1-1 calls, or triage the 
injured themselves. No one expects an IC to do everything.

Someone else on the incident response team should be tasked (and trained) 
in the public alerting/warning process and carry out the incident 
commander's directions. In some cases, that person may need to 
proactively remind the IC of the ability to issue a public warning 
message.  For example, in Gatlinburg TN incident, the National Weather 
Service proactively reached out to the local emergency management agency 
to ask if they wanted NWS to activate the warning system.

I also understand, small emergency management agencies won't have (and 
can't afford) a deep bench of experience doing everything.  An EMA 
may need to reach down, up or sidewise to other EMAs or supporting 
organizations.