[EAS] Wildfires -- Colorado re-learning the lessons California learned

[Sean Donelan]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2022, Dave Kline wrote:
>
> Who's job was it? The military... maybe?

History.... There was a 40-year debate during the cold war.  And the 
result of the debate was FEMA was transitioned to a civilian agency 
-- not part of the military. Warning the public was determined to be a 
civil responsbility, not military authorites.  The military detects 
national threats and reports to civilian leaders. Its civilians who make 
the decisions and notify the public.

CONELRAD was initiated by the military authorities (NORAD).  EBS was 
controlled by civil authorities (the President), not the military.

Under the U.S. system of constitutional government, civil defense is not a 
military responsbility.

In the weird post-apocalyptical planning of "COG" (Continuity of 
Government), "COOP" (Continuity of Operations Planning), and "ECG" 
(Enduring Constitutional Government) -- the notion of civilian 
control of military forces is critical. The cold war defense planners 
tried very hard to prevent the military taking direct control over 
domestic civilian powers. Remember, after WWII, the U.S. and allied 
military forces had direct control over Germany and Japan. So cold war 
policy planners had recent life-experience; and spent a lot of time 
re-assuring political leaders that would never happen in the U.S.

The cold war defense planners also wrote a lot.  There are still many 
studies and documents in the archives.

That's why FEMA's statement that warning the public of ICBMs wasn't their 
job was a shock to some internal government COOP/COG (now ECG) 
old-timers. That's was literally one of the reasons why FEMA's 
predecessor agency was transitioned from the Department of Defense to a 
separate civilian agency during the cold war.

But people don't remember history.

That's why its important to have a published Concept of Operations when 
it hits the fan. Or as the cold war folks call it CONOPS.

Unfortunately, most of the public warning system's operations just hope 
that everyone knows how to use them.  That doesn't work very well during 
a disaster. Its left up to people to improvise.