[EAS] Blue Alerts Are Back

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

Per the latest rulemaking, the available categories for WEA are (will soon be) as follows...

1) Presidential (no opt-out permitted),
2) Amber,
3) Imminent Threat (basically everything else currently permitted),
4) Public Safety (practically anything else from an official source), and,
5) State/Local Test.

It will be another two years or so before those rule changes, along with the 360-character message, embedded links and Spanish language messaging, will all take effect.  The technical standards for implementing those changes are being developed right now.  Not sure whether it will be feasible to get a new category into the current standard-setting cycle, but presumably Blue Alerts could be carried either as Amber or as Imminent Threat for the time being.

Given the current technical implementation of WEA as part of the firmware/operating system of phones, even when a new standard is standardized it takes something like eighteen months to two years for the majority of users to trade up to new phones with those features enabled.

And we're all aware of what's involved in implementing new categories (codes) within EAS... it's by no means a rapid process... and in fact that we're in one of those cycles already for the new severe-storm codes.  Could the Blue Alert NPRM run its course to regulation-setting in time to get in on the current cycle without delaying the new NWS codes?