IPAWS Is Just the First Step (Column)

FEMA’s acronym IPAWS (short for the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System) is a wonderfully descriptive name for the goal of the now-dormant Partnership for Public Warning’s decade-old call for a national public warning strategy for the United States. The current implementation of FEMA IPAWS, important as it is, is just a first step on a long road to create a coherent, orchestrated, unified national public warning strategy.

This strategy must provide training for all warning stakeholders (and the public) and mandates close cooperation and coordination between all viable public warning modes to provide for better, more effective outcomes. While we hope for national legislation and guidance, the states do not have to wait. We should all work together to put the diverse pieces of the emergency public information puzzle together in an overall strategy.

This means that those in charge of managing emergencies involving mass public safety will, as a core resource management duty and responsibility, coordinate a series of origination and follow-up messages that now employ a growing number of warning systems and social media platforms.

The entire series of warnings and updates issued by emergency management agencies
should tell the unfolding story of the emergency to the public and other interested parties, as well as provide those impacted by the event with timely and informative protective actions they should take.

Coordination of emergency public information is now more important than ever since some of the new means to distribute warnings are “short form.” Twitter allows just 140 characters. Wireless Emergency Alert messages (formerly the Commercial Mobile Alert System) can contain 90 characters. Sirens are one-note warning systems.

It should be obvious that these forms are really warning headlines that require more information before people at risk are motivated to take action and have enough information to know what actions to take. There are exceptions. In the case of a Wireless Emergency Alert or Twitter message about an impending tornado or flash flood, those at risk may have already received enough prior information and education on what to do.

Because of such training and education for risks like tornadoes and hurricanes, most citizens at risk from those hazards are sufficiently motivated by past local events to take protective actions to protect themselves and their property in time to make a difference.

However, consider the almost infinite number of risks and regions where the public has received little or no training on what to do when it receives a short-form warning. The American public needs to receive more coordinated and timely follow-up information through the Emergency Alert System and other “long-form” sources so they can protect themselves.

My state, California, has been a leader in the training of emergency managers, including public information officers. Overall emergency public information training needs to be updated for even better warning coordination. States, notably Washington, are integrating warnings more closely with overall emergency management. All 50 states need to get on board.

Richard Rudman is a core member of the Broadcast Warning Working Group and vice chair of the California EAS State Emergency communications center.