[EAS] Of Monkeys and Messages

[Richard Rudman]

What happened to change all that:

1. Pressure increased "to do something" resulting from failures to warn that in some cases led to the loss of lives and property.

 2. An easy to use bright shiny object was created called WEA that led many in the EM community to think that being able to warn through cell phones would solve their warning problems. They thought they now had a sharp tool to replace the admittedly blunt broadcast warning tool that is EAS. 

3. IMO the FEMA IPAWS training tools/tests do not go far enough to prepare warning center personnel. Most of us have gone through all the relevant IS courses. I wonder how seriously these courses were taken by those who were supposed to take them to achieve agency certification to originate through IPAWS, if the testing in the IS courses really tests judgement, and if IS training went "deep" enough in all agencies to have a positive effect.

4. We wind up with an embedded level of people ill-equipped to be effective warning originators and/or incapable of standing up to superiors who bring pressures to bear on lowly warning center staff to issue warnings that do not comply with IPAWS criteria.

It's not our job to decide what constitutes a "warning"

It may not be our job, but after decades of experience and exposure to research, many of us know when the job has been done well and when it has not. We all have worked for people who do not take good advice.  Doesn't mean we have to give up trying to get our voices heard.

Opposing views welcome....

Richard

>On Dec 11, 2020, at 5:09 PM, Adrienne Abbott <nevadaeas at charter.net> wrote:

>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?