[EAS] False EM alarm in HI

[Richard_Rudman]

i have to strongly side with Art on this one.

People do not usually get into positions in warning centers by being "Homers". Many of them are current or former LEO or fire service dispatchers, or 9-1-1 call handlers. I cannot think of anyone I have met in those jobs who got in it for the money. Most are public servants in the truest, highest and best original meaning of the term.

I do know that this may not turn out to be the first such event where the fault was traced to the warning system equivalent of a gun with no safety, or an ATM machine with no "Are you sure?" steps before you do some banking thing you might regret. I would sooner trust the software in an ATM than the software in some of the third party warning origination systems I have heard about to do emergency public warnings.

At least three WEA and/or EAS munged warning instances some of us know about occurred here in California but did not involve a false warning of an ICBM launch. They did not result in the media feeding frenzy and the rampant talking head uniformed speculation we saw unfold today. Grrrrrrrrrrr...

Public warning origination training is an issue. There are as yet no overall state or national training guidelines that I am aware of. Blame the student? I am not going to do that.

Currently, as Art pointed out, vendors of origination systems for warning originators do not have to go through rigorous conformance testing to assure that they are not user-hostile,and there are no standards for the warning system equivalent of gun safeties. And, lest we forget, EAS box vendors each came up with their own proprietary interpretation of Part 11 requirements. Ironic considering all the time and trouble to get CAP vetted as in international non-proprietary warning message formatting standard.

Finally, the answers for Hawaii EMA that will make a repeat less likely there may not be the same for other jurisdictions or systems.

Regards,

Richard Rudman

> On Jan 13, 2018, at 10:19 PM, Botterell, Arthur at CalOES <Arthur.Botterell at CalOES.ca.gov> wrote:
> 
> Everyone's a Homer now and again... that's why guns have safeties.  Were the safeties adequate in this case?