[EAS] The words we use

[Sean Donelan]

On Mon, 4 Sep 2017, Botterell, Arthur at CalOES wrote:
> Another semantic pitfall is framing the issue of warning in terms of 
> political boundaries, like those on which FIPS codes are founded.

Pretending that political boundaries and jurisdictional authority don't 
exist is also naive for civil alerting and warnings. I understand why new 
york city civil authorities make the political argument for hyper-local 
geo-targeting need to be less than 528 feet. I can put all sorts of 
things on my wishlist, when I don't need to pay for them.

Civil warnings are issued by authorities with jurisdiction determined by 
political boundaries.  The U.S. National Weather Service doesn't issue 
weather alerts for Canada.  NOAA/NWS draws a polygon up to the US/Canada 
border; and Environment Canada draws a polygon on its side of the 
political border.  The weather doesn't stop at the US/Canada border, but 
the jurisdiction does.  Even between different NOAA/NWS Weather Forecast 
Offices, polygons almost never cross into the jurisdiction of a 
different weather forecast office.

California civil authorities don't issue civil alerts for adjacent states, 
even though some EAS local areas extend across the border between 
California/Nevada and California/Oregon. Heck, the Texas Governor had to 
walk back his statements about voluntary evacuation in Houston because he 
didn't have the jurisdiction.

Most states issue AMBER alerts state-wide because the authority having 
jurisdiction for AMBER alerts is a state-wide agency, not because its 
likely the abductor left the immediate area. I expect the same 
jurisdictional lines will be true for BLUE alerts.  A blue alert issued by
Maryland authorities won't be broadcast in New York City, until maybe 
passing through multiple jurisdictional hurdles.

Likewise, Nielson Designated Market Areas (DMA) have more influence on EAS 
cable system and broadcast propagation than FIPS codes or polygons in CAP 
messages. Nielson also tends to follow political boundaries, with only a 
rare split county. NYC OEM can draw 528 foot polygons or use FIPS codes, 
but broadcasters will still interrupt programming in the entire 
Nielson DMA.