[EAS] Of Monkeys and Messages

[Adrienne Abbott]

Monkeys.my internal spell check was not working at 6 am.

 

Remember back to the early days of EAS we used to lament that officials did
not, would not, use EAS. Now, we're complaining that they're using it too
much??? What happened to change that? 

 

We're forgetting that when we broadcasters provide EAS, we are only the
"gateway" between public officials and the public they are trying to warn.
We're forgetting our place in the toolbox. It's not our job to decide what
constitutes a "warning". We have the ability to decide for ourselves whether
we want to transmit that warning on our stations. Yes, I know everyone is on
automatic right now. If your officials are garbage-ing up your airwaves with
what you think are questionable or unwarranted EAS activations, set your
equipment to hold state and local activations until you or someone has a
change to review the message, or close the EAS gate. 

 

In the "old days" an official, emergency manager, public safety or law
enforcement official would have to dial up the Local Primary station, ask
for the activation, describe the circumstances and, if the station staff
agreed that the circumstances warranted an activation, record a message and
wait for the station to send the activation, apparently a painful process
for many because non-weather EAS activations were rare in the "old days".
And when there was an activation, there was the resulting flurry of calls
from radio and TV stations to the local officials, interview requests and
the ultimate questions of "What went wrong", "Why" and "Who's fault was it?"
and more pain for state or local officials. 

 

FEMA's IPAWS program changed all that. Now an official can send an EAS
activation from the sterile comfort of their own home, office, coffee shop
or car. They don't have to go through the Local Primary stations. Agencies
can sign up for IPAWS programs without any interaction with broadcasters or
the EAS SECC or State Chair. They can start sending EAS activations without
any training in the state or local EAS Plan and broadcasters don't even know
the agencies even exist, much less have access to EAS, until they hear their
EAS activation on the station's airwaves. 

 

Never mind that we know there's a difference between "the media" and EAS. To
most state and local officials, we're all the same. And they don't want to
play in our toolbox, even though the result is still the same. An EAS
activation generates the need for attention from the news media. It's
supposed to do that. It's really difficult to hide an EAS activation, and
the first indication that a state or county agency has access to EAS
shouldn't be an EAS activation, especially one which begins with the words
"There is no emergency.". 

 

Many agencies are in denial about EAS and broadcasting. They find it easier
to "force-feed" us their messages rather than call our news or programming
departments. The lack of contact between an originating agency and the SECC
and EAS Chair leaves a big gap in communication which can become dangerously
obvious during an emergency or disaster. After all, an EAS activation is
limited to two minutes, enough time to tell people to get out of Dodge and
maybe what road to take or not take, and that's it. That's all and that's
not enough. It's a headline, the knock on the door, not the entire story.  

 

After that two-minute activation has worked its way through the signal
coverage area of a dozen or more radio and TV stations, people in multiple
communities are wondering if the evacuation order applies to them, how do
they find out if it does, how long do they have to decide what to do and
then get their stuff together and get out of their homes. If they don't get
an answer from 9-1-1, they're going to call the local TV or radio station
and we are going to try our best to give these people an answer. Sometimes
we have the information, sometimes, more often than should be, we don't.
Hence the need for EAS training, for agencies to have PIO's and to plan for
complete warning information in a disaster, especially after an EAS
activation is issued. They tell us that they don't have time in an emergency
to talk to us, ignoring the obvious fact that we can eliminate a lot of the
phone calls which tie up their 9-1-1 system with a few regular updates.  

 

Is WEA any help in this? Maybe, but I haven't mentioned WEA because WEA
isn't an EAS function. Being an EAS Chair does not give us any authority
over WEA messaging. We don't have access to WEA. We can't send out WEA
messages. It's not our job-not our toolbox. Few of us have any background in
Emergency Management beyond some basic FEMA classes. We are experts in Part
11 and broadcasting but not in WEA. And even though the same program used
for EAS is also used for WEA, we are not in charge of it, no more than we
are in charge of an agency's Facebook page or Twitter account or telephone
notification system. 

 

And whether it's EAS or WEA, we simply don't have the authority to tell an
Emergency Manager or other public official that she or he can't issue a WEA
or EAS activation. They know what's going on their communities and they make
the decision on issuing warnings and the type of warning they're going to
use. And, because they have their FEMA IPAWS program at their fingertips,
it's easy to send a WEA message or an EAS activation when they think they
community needs that information. 

 

But we can't take a "spanky spoon" to their backsides for issuing something
we don't think warrants that EAS activation or WEA message. We can train an
agency in good decision-making processes in our EAS classes, we can teach
them the differences between WEA messages and EAS activations, we can put
advisories in our EAS plans, we can discuss what we think were poor
decisions after an EAS activation, we can tell them that stations are no
longer carrying their activations, but that's all we can do. And, we have no
standing or authority over WEA. We don't write WEA plans. WEA messages don't
go through our stations. It's not a Part 11 function. It doesn't matter how
many calls were made to TV or radio stations as a result of that
questionable WEA message. We didn't issue it. And since when does a
broadcaster complain about receiving calls from viewers? Isn't that one of
the ways we serve our communities? Wouldn't your GM be worried if the phone
wasn't ringing? 

 

It's a wonderful thing when you have a good working relationship with your
state and local emergency officials. And you can help them understand what
you and EAS can and can't do for your community. You can even help them
understand why WEA might be a better choice for issuing emergency
information in certain situations and why they shouldn't send an EAS
activation or WEA message for information that is currently dispersed by
every form of media in existence. But the point comes when we have to
understand that some decisions are made by forces, often political, which
are beyond our control. 

 

Not my circus, not my monkeys. Rant over. 

Adrienne

Adrienne Abbott, W6BCY

Nevada EAS Chair