[EAS] Blue Alerts Are Back

[Mike McCarthy]

With all due respect, Blue Alerts are not a directed call to action
message to preserve the masses life and/or property. If there is a threat
to the general public, that's different. There;s an event codes for
that...LEW

Vanity micro-event codes are at odds with the fundamental premise of EAS:
Mass alerting for the masses to plan or take immediate preservative or
protective action. It's not for the one or few.

Moreover, public safety radio systems are much quicker at inter-agency
comms.  Especially if the message goes out from a county with NAWAS or
some other state wide connectivity.

The states, including my own, which have elected to not involve EAS for
such types of alerting have it right. Distribute administratively and to
the media via normal channels this kind of threat. Leave EAS and WEA out
of it lest it become a real matter of preserving public safety on a
massive basis. Then again, if 9/11 didn't warrant an EAS activation for
Manhattan County, what will?

This is bad policy in the making.

Cheers....

MM

On Thu, May 25, 2017 2:15 pm, Suzanne Goucher wrote:
>
> I'd argue for a separate code for Blue Alerts.
>
> -Suzanne Goucher, Maine Association of Broadcasters