National Warning System Operations

The objective of the Warning Program is to establish, operate, and maintain an effective nationwide warning system to alert governments, industry, and the public to the threat of enemy attack and other extraordinary dangers.

Following a series of natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina, that revealed shortcomings in the nation's ability to effectively alert populations at risk, Congress passed the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act in 2006. Today, new technologies such as smart phones and social media platforms offer new ways to communicate with the public, and the information ecosystem is much broader, including additional official channels, such as government social media accounts, opt-in short message service (SMS)-based alerting systems, and reverse 911 systems; less official channels, such as main stream media outlets and weather applications on connected devices; and unofficial channels, such as first person reports via social media. Traditional media have also taken advantage of these new tools, including their own mobile applications to extend their reach of beyond broadcast radio, television, and cable. Furthermore, private companies have begun to take advantage of the large amounts of data about users they possess to detect events and provide alerts and warnings and other hazard-related information to their users. More than 60 years of research on the public response to alerts and warnings has yielded many insights about how people respond to information that they are at risk and the circumstances under which they are most likely to take appropriate protective action. Some, but not all, of these results have been used to inform the design and operation of alert and warning systems, and new insights continue to emerge. Emergency Alert and Warning Systems reviews the results of past research, considers new possibilities for realizing more effective alert and warning systems, explores how a more effective national alert and warning system might be created and some of the gaps in our present knowledge, and sets forth a research agenda to advance the nation's alert and warning capabilities.

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is built on a structure conceived in the 1950¿s when over-the-air broadcasting was the best-available technol. for widely disseminating emergency alerts. It is one of several federally managed warning systems. The NOAA/NWS weather radio system has been upgraded to an all-hazard warning capability. The Dept. of Homeland Security is implementing a program that will disseminate nat. alert messages over digital broadcast airwaves, using satellite and public TV broadcast towers. This program is called the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). Contents of this report: EAS Admin.; NOAA Weather Radio; All-Hazard Warning Tech.; Public Alert Warning System: The WARN Act. A print on demand report.

The objective of the Warning Program is to establish, operate, and maintain an effective nationwide warning system to alert governments, industry, and the public to the threat of enemy attack and other extraordinary dangers.

"The purpose of this Civil Preparedness Guide (CPG) is to describe the National Warning System (NAWAS) operational and functional capabilities; equipment operation and arrangement, and operational procedures"--Chap 1.

Following an earlier NRC workshop on public response to alerts and warnings delivered to mobile devices, a related workshop was held on February 28 and 29, 2012 to look at the role of social media in disaster response. This was one of the first workshops convened to look systematically at the use of social media for alerts and warnings-an event that brought together social science researchers, technologists, emergency management professionals, and other experts on how the public and emergency managers use social media in disasters.In addition to exploring how officials monitor social media, as well as the resulting privacy considerations, the workshop focused on such topics as: what is known about how the public responds to alerts and warnings; the implications of what is known about such public responses for the use of social media to provide alerts and warnings to the public; and approaches to enhancing the situational awareness of emergency managers. Public Response to Alerts and Warnings Using Social Media: Report of a Workshop on Current Knowledge and Research Gaps summarizes presentations made by invited speakers, other remarks by workshop participants, and discussions during parallel breakout sessions. It also points to potential topics for future research, as well as possible areas for future research investment, and it describes some of the challenges facing disaster managers who are seeking to incorporate social media into regular practice.