[EAS] Good article on EAS in AK

[Rich Parker]

Adrienne -

Lots of good questions and suggestions there!  I don't know about the
possibility of tying into another states system, but I'm sure a lot of
things will be discussed.

My understanding is that it is NWS 'policy' that IPAWS not forward
weather information - if that is changing due to your work in Nevada,
that is certainly welcome news.

I don't have insight into a lot of your 'why' questions about noticing
things and calls - but I'm sure those will be discussed as well.

There is a pretty detailed account here (DoC Service Assesment) - I
have the document, so I didn't bother to register an account to access
it this way, but I imagine it is fairly routine to do do:

It is the second document on the page here:

https://verification.nws.noaa.gov/services/public/index.aspx

which takes you to this page where you need to log in to retrieve it.

https://verification.nws.noaa.gov/sats2/sa.aspx?Id=1035

Between server failures, power outages, and other factors, it was a
rather 'perfect storm' for things to not go especially well - but I
think the lessons learned will be taken to heart and acted upon.

And of course, from the broadcasters' perspective, everything in our
wheelhouse worked as it was supposed to - in that we can only
broadcast what we receive - which we eventually did, but nearly 30
minutes later than we should have. Lots of folks got the WEA alerts
and did move to high ground immediately, but not every carrier
supports them (at least, not without downloading and installing a
separate app) and the switchboard at NTWC was overwhelmed with calls
and eventually their Avaya IP Office 500 PBX server crashed (the telco
vendor has recently updated the firmware after that event), the
warning GUI failed to work and the intern (bless him/her) managed to
code things manually through an alternate message system, the web site
was basically rendered useless (almost like a DoS if you will), and
general confusion and chaos contributed to much uncertainty for a
while. Local broadcasters pitched in and manually relayed messages and
coverage to people, and that was considered a 'plus' - but it was a
bit disorienting for a while to not see it from 'official channels'.

[I got an WEA on my phone at 00:36 and we finally got the TSW from our
local NWS office (via weather radio) at 01:02.  But as the article
noted - nothing from IPAWS or EMNet]

Rich

On Wed, Jun 27, 2018 at 2:27 PM Adrienne Abbott <nevadaeas at charter.net> wrote:
>
> Rich--
> Just got a chance to read the article and even though the reporter did a
> thorough job of looking into the situation, I have several questions...