[EAS] 'improving' EAS

[Gary Timm]

Sean, et al,

For decades, the only definition of the EAS Event Codes that we've had to go on are issued by NWS, in
National Weather Service Instruction 10-518.  The definition of each Event Code is found in Appendix B, Section 4 (starting on Page 28 of the PDF). 

Here is a link to the April 30, 2018 version of NWSI 10-518:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/sym/pd01005018curr.pdf

For instance, here is CDW definition:

B.4.5 Civil Danger Warning (CDW)
A warning of an event that presents a danger to a significant civilian population. The CDW, which usually warns of a specific hazard and gives specific protective action, has a higher priority than the Local Area Emergency (LAE). Examples include contaminated water supply and imminent or imminent or in-progress military or terrorist attack. Public protective actions could include evacuation, shelter in place, or other actions (such as boiling contaminated water or seeking medical treatment).

Gary Timm
WI SECC
(These definitions are in our State EAS Plan.)

From: Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>

On Thu, 19 Jul 2018, Clay Freinwald wrote:
> Bill Ruck wrote -
>> There is no EAS code for FIRE.
>
> REALLY ?    What is an FRW ???

In addition to FRW - Fire Warning, there is always CEM - Civil Emergency
Message, a catchall for any other emergency message.

The challange for warning coordinators is lack of guidance or explanation
from FCC or FEMA. As recently as the June 21, 2018 webinar with the FCC, a
local emergency manager asked what types of emergencies can WEA or EAS be
used?  The FCC response (paraphrased) was essentially "read table (e)
[EAS Event Codes] in Part 11.31."

If you are a local warning coordinator, the list of EAS event codes in
Part 11.31(e) is just list of some vague phrases and codes with no
explantion or guidance. I understand why low-level officials at FCC and
FEMA don't want to go on the record, even if they wanted to.  I had to
dance the bureaucratic two-step when my boss's boss boss directed me to
avoid certain questions in public forums.

The Common Alerting Protocol document isn't better -
Urgency, severity, and certainty confuse the heck out of warning
coordinators so they usually just turn them all up to "11" (movie
reference). The other CAP parameters like category and response type seem
to be almost random in IPAWS messages, except for NOAA's messages.

If there was clear guidance for wildfire and local emergency managers,
they would be more confident when to use and not use WEA and EAS
appropriately. That does not necessarily mean the salesperson selling an
alert notification system to a county.

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