[EAS] The words we use

[Clay Freinwald]

Responding to Bill's  comment - 

>There is no way to reconcile weather polygons, broadcast station coverage,
and political boundaries. 

We have a number of dis-connects in our public warning systems....Allow me
to name a few - 

THE GREAT POLYGON - 

Computer systems have given us powerful tools to describe specific
geographic areas with the movement of a mouse and draw little shapes on our
display.       Those that are using them know exactly where the bad stuff is
located (especially useful with weather) as they can overlay this little
electronic box on their radar and by factoring in the direction the think is
going issue a warning for those that will be impacted - Cool.

There are a number of problems with this scheme - 

>> If you can identify the to-be impacted area using terms that are easily
understood by all...Like the name of a city or town...That's great.
      
>> If you cannot - You are in trouble because most people don't know exactly
where they are - They used references like addresses etc that are not very
useful.

>> We looked and trying to use the FIPS sub-divisions in combination with
Forecast Zones many years ago and gave it because of the same reason.

>> TV Broadcasters can use this technology with their graphics (provided
they can import and process it) 

>> Radio Broadcasters are stuck with aural descriptions.

>> Get too many messages flowing in too short of a period of time for too
large an area and broadcasters will pull the plug on the process.

>> Broadcasting in general is a hit-or -miss proposal due to it's ability to
ignore anything except for Presidential Messages.

>> NWR - TODAY- is a very poor vehicle for the distribution of specific area
messaging for many reasons, flooding the main offender

>> WEA has great potential, provided the user permits their location to be
known and provided then have not turned off all alerting (message flooding
for a cell user is an automatic command to turn it off (forever) 

>>  A lot of this reminds me of the self-driving car - (or a lot of other
things we do)   We do it - because we can.    And we try and cram the
technology into existing infrastructure whether is it ready or not.   

> > In all too many cases we are locked into the belief that backward
compatibility is a prime directive.    TV finally 'gave-in' with ATSC and
moved forward - Knowing that a lot of consumer hardware would be turned into
junk in the process - We would do well to do the same thing with public
warning systems.

My Short List - 

Clay Freinwald