[EAS] EAS triggered - for where?

[Clay Freinwald]

Dave and others - - 

Several years ago we had a similar problem here in the Seattle area with an
EVI that was shipped out by a county .
The reaction to this cause the next SECC Meeting room to be filled with
people demanding that we fix the system.

Here's what happened- 

The 'Canned' (SAME Based) message called for Evacuation of the ENTIRE COUNTY
while the 'Audio ' message specified a number of blocks within the City 

HUGE DIFFERENCE !!!

This exposed the fact that EAS Messages can (and often do) contain
conflicting information that should, and can be, avoided !

The problem is that the TV stations were generating their Crawl's from the
SAME message...resulting in a great deal of anger and frustration.

The TV stations could have (if they wished) generated the Crawl from the
Audio Message and this would have resulted in a unified (Voice and Text)
message.   
Of course, the TV stations are not going to have someone enter this into
their character generator....They would rather blame the system.

Thankfully, we here in Washington State (long before FEMA IPAWS) Instituted
a CAP based system that would provide Textual information that could be
ingested into the TV crawl system.

Now that these SAME systems are being used in a secondary role and CAP
system are used as a primary distribution method - These issues should be
behind us.

In terms of Geo-Location - SAME is Crude- when used for EAS messages.
(By the way the same issues have affected WEA) 

Also in the past, working with NWS, attempted merge FIPS with their Forecast
Zones.    This was not successful for a number of reasons.

The bottom line is that any message that is delivered via a geographically
wide coverage system (Broadcasting etc.) is faced with the fact that the
locations provided MUST be recognized by the people receiving it! 
Unfortunately a person from out of state or from the next county is not
likely to be able to comprehend location information provided via a
broadcast system.    This is where WEA has the edge in that they have the
capability to deliver a message to a specific geographic area.    Likewise,
It's challenging to come up with a means of describing a location using ANY
reference information.   There are many that have no clue what Zip Code they
are in (Email and Text Messages don't use them).   A person in a moving
vehicle only makes things more complicated.

Until such time as all devices know where they are (GPS Connected) so as to
only provide information to the user they can really use...The public
warning systems are going to be a crap-shoot.

Clay Freinwald
SECC Chair, Washington State

-----Original Message-----
From: EAS [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Dave Kline

I remember when the warned areas used to be described as "70 miles either
side of a line between [town A] and [town B]."
Wasn't easy to figure that out, even for people who live "there."
----------------------------------------
Dave Kline
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On May 9, 2018, at 11:06 AM, Barry Mishkind wrote:

>At 05:20 AM 5/9/2018, Mike McCarthy wrote:
>>This is a problem everywhere a FIPS code covers more than 400 sq. miles.

>       Not only that, but as I've written many times,
>       one of the areas FIPS and, by default, NWS
>       fails is the business of announcing alerts
>       for a county. Few people driving through
>       have any idea what county they are in - and
>       might just be driving directly into a storm,
>       for example.

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