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

[Robert Bunge - NOAA Federal]

I was surprised to see a focus that WEA is only the entire county and sub-county couldn't be used until after "eWEA" is in place.  

I'm not at NWS anymore, but all the major carriers started to use the NWS polygons years ago, perhaps in 2014.  This was as much for NWS as it was a self-defense reaction on their part as they experienced value at triggering as small as part of their network as possible.  

Do the FEMA blessed software solutions allow polygons? Or does it vary from product to product?  I'm wondering if this is the old beat the dead horse training issue at work.

Bob

On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at 1:22 PM, Botterell, Arthur at CalOES <Arthur.Botterell at caloes.ca.gov> wrote:
>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

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