[EAS] Disputed alert system gets upgrade after Wine Country fires

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

Dave, you're right to be skeptical about that overly broad claim.  ALL counties have access to WEA under the FCC and FEMA rules, as do municipalities and even some quasi-municipal entities like military bases and even major airports.

However, not all counties have taken advantage of the opportunity.  In some cases they rely on other entities, e.g., the state in some places, to send alerts to IPAWS for them.  In other cases they've been deterred by the cost of the requisite software/web service, which has to be certified by FEMA.  In still other cases they simply aren't aware of WEA or its availability.

That last may seem hard to imagine, but in practice many governments' chief source of information on technology is their vendors, and most vendors of IPAWS access tools have alerting products of their own that they're marketing.  The professional training of public safety and emergency management folks, while it's been formalized considerably over the past two decades, still teaches very little about public warning.

Art