[EAS] Blue Alerts Are Back

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

>                                     If EMA officials decide it's important enough to
>interrupt broadcasters for an alert, how to prepare a high-quality alert
>message which is most likely to be carried by a range of public alerting
>channels (broadcasters, mobile phones, social media networks, etc).

Isn't there a bit of tail-wagging-dog there?  Alert originators shouldn't be inhibited from using other alerting channels just because EAS entails interrupting broadcasts over a wider area than they're comfortable with.  That's a bit of a caveat to the use-every-channel conventional wisdom... after all, there's nothing less effective than a warning that doesn't get issued at all.

Also, I think it's important to remember that many alerts don't originate with "EMA officials."  Per NIMS the authority/responsibility for issuing alerts lies with the Incident Commander, who's rarely in an EMA.  We still tend to make the cold-war-era assumption that alerting can be managed from a bunker somewhere, but operational doctrine left that station some time ago.  The EMA folks might prefer to be in the middle of the warning process, but they rarely have the resources to do it rapidly, 24/7.  And modern alerting tools don't require a mini-studio in a fixed facility.

We need to be talking more directly with the public-safety folks.  

Art