A number of emergencies in the past year or two have highlighted the state of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and its effectiveness in warning the general public. Richard Rudman takes the long view of where things are in terms of public warning, and what is still needed to be done. In 2014, […]

The largest and most deadly fire in California history burned over 153,000 acres, took nearly 90 lives, 19,000 structures, and $10 Billion in damages. Much of the damage and deaths happened in a short few hours. Reviewing the event, the California State Hearing on November 17th focused on how to approve altering and […]

FCC Rules require that broadcast stations receive and log two EAS tests a week, and send and log one test a week. For most stations strips and rolls of paper have been replaced with data files in the EAS boxes. But the requirement to receive/send/log/review remain. Reports from the field indicate a large […]

While we have heard about recent botched alerts in Hawaii and other places, the status of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) itself has not changed much, even with the addition of WEA, largely because each entity in the warning arena continues to act like no one else is home. Rod Zeigler suggests a […]

Early on the morning of Saturday, January 13th an alert was sent from Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA). Saying a ballistic missile was headed to Hawaii and that it was not a drill caused over a half an hour of sheer panic for the state’s residents. Perhaps you saw the video of people […]

Anyone who has been following the topic of EAS alerts and Public Warning issues knows the problems – from Hawaii to Tsunami Alerts on the East Coast to Emergency Managers who ignore EAS yet try reverse 911 in an area where fires have burned out the phone lines. And we should also remember […]

There are many different approaches to “fixing” the lack of a unified national warning system. Some answers have been around for two decades, but government inertia has moved little since EAS was unveiled. This is especially true since 2011, when the FCC tossed the ball to the FEMA and the result was everyone […]

Early on the morning of Saturday, January 13th an alert was sent from Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA). Saying a ballistic missile was headed to Hawaii and that it was not a drill caused over a half an hour of sheer panic for the state’s residents. Perhaps you saw the video of people […]

The FCC has been in the middle of updating the Part 11 Rules on EAS for what seems a half-century. However, during June, the Commission has put out a bunch of NPRMs, including on one EAS, and announced they had already adopted the EAS Test Reporting System (ETRS) to be used for the […]