"Best Practices for Alert and Warning Systems, Leveraging Public - PDF document

"Best Practices for Alert and Warning Systems, Leveraging Public Private Partnership" I’d like to express my sincere appreciation to the economies of the Asia ‐ Pacific Economic Cooperation for inviting me to share Best Practices and Lessons Learned during the successful implementation of the FEMA Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) with APEC. I am delighted for this opportunity to discuss the virtues of the IPAWS system, and it is my sincere wish that those in attendance at this workshop will find value in the information we discuss today as they pursue development and implementation of alert and warning systems as an integral part of the disaster risk reduction framework to enhance the safety and security of citizens and protect infrastructure throughout the Asia ‐ Pacific region. The success of the FEMA IPAWS is the result of an extraordinary level of public and private collaboration that has both enabled and informed leading ‐ edge technological innovation through the adoption of accepted international standards for open ‐ architecture, common access protocols, and the cooperative implementation of sound regulatory policies to support reliable governance and oversight of message origination, cyber security, content, and distribution of critical, time ‐ sensitive information to reliably alert and warn all citizens – including the access

and functional needs and non ‐ English speaking communities – in advance of an emergency. Alerting the public in the United States began in 1951, when the Emergency Broadcast System was created to allow the President of the United States to communicate national military emergencies to citizens over broadcast radio. By 1963 public safety officials began using the system to provide public warning at the state and local levels for weather and other emergencies. By 1997, the system had expanded from broadcast radio, to cable and satellite television. Today, in cooperation with government regulatory organizations and private sector partnerships, FEMA enables federal, state, and local officials to disseminate early alert and warning information via all available media, in multiple formats. In 2006 the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) was created by Presidential Executive Order with the goal of "Providing integrated warning services and capabilities to Federal, State, territorial, tribal, and local authorities that enable them to alert and warn their respective communities via multiple communications methods." IPAWS is based on four principle tenants : 1. Make alert and warning more effective 2. Integrate national alert and warning capabilities using all available technologies 3. Provide emergency information to citizens without an understanding of the English language

4. Ensure delivery of emergency information to citizens with access and functional needs (i.e., hearing impaired, sight impaired, and mobility challenged) By issuing Commercial Mobile Alerting System (CMAS) interface specifications to allow for seamless exchange of emergency information between IPAWS and commercial cellular networks in December 2009, and adopting the international standard Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) developed by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Systems (OASIS) in September 2010, FEMA provided technical requirements to assist broadcast, cellular, and other commercial industries to design applications that would enable origination and distribution of emergency information by public safety officials. IPAWS became operational in 2011, and today processes more than 3.6 million warning ‐ related messages annually, including weather watches, advisories, and statements. A partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) enables distribution of non ‐ weather emergencies in addition to weather events through the National Weather Service broadcasts. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has teamed with FEMA to provide AMBER Alert messaging to notify the public within minutes of a child abduction, which has directly contributed to the rapid location and safe recovery of 19 children since it began leveraging IPAWS. Today 64 State ‐ level, more than 700 local agencies in 49

states, and 665 public agencies and organizations – including 9 universities, 8 U.S. military bases, and several health departments use IPAWS to alert and warn the public, or to exchange information with other IPAWS users about the possibility of weather and non ‐ weather emergencies, and criminal acts. In December, 2011 President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Harper agreed to a trans ‐ national plan for sharing alert, warning, and incident information as part of the Beyond the Border Action Plan to improve response coordination through integration of IPAWS into the Canadian Multi ‐ Agency Situational Awareness System. The value of the existing public and private partnership to IPAWS’ success cannot be overstated . Nearly ubiquitous national access to IPAWS information in the United States is achieved with the assistance of over 26,000 radio and television stations who participate. IPAWS relies on the support and cooperation of 61 companies within the commercial cellular industry to distribute messages to an estimated 264 million mobile subscriber devices. Formatting of website and social media content contained in emergency alert and warning messages is supported by 51 application developers and secondary distributors . Continued public/private cooperation is critical to the future plans for IPAWS. The Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) service is an alerting capability within the IPAWS architecture that was established through the collaborative efforts of the

Federal Communications Commission (FCC), FEMA, and members of the commercial wireless industry . Wireless Emergency Alerts leverage the cellular carriers’ administrative channel, which provides the link necessary to ensure subscriber devices remain connected to cellular networks. Wireless Emergency Alerts use the administrative channel to transmit 90 ‐ character alert and warning text messages to the home screens of mobile devices. Use of the administrative channel ensures that all active subscribers within range of a cellular tower receive the WEA text message at once, without risk of delay due to call volume. Federal Communications Commission regulatory restrictions limit the use of WEA to three categories: • Presidential (national emergencies) • AMBER alerts (missing children) • Imminent threat to public safety (everything else – including weather and other public safety hazards) Further regulatory restrictions require commercial cellular providers to include a capability that permits mobile subscribers to disable or “opt ‐ out” of AMBER and Imminent threat messages. The “opt ‐ out” feature is not provided for Presidential or national emergency messages however. Use of the WEA technology provides Federal, State, and Local officials with an assured capacity for quickly notifying all citizens within a given area. The National Weather Service leverages WEA to issue alert and

warning for weather events that pose immediate danger and require rapid notification such as Flash Flood, Tornado, Dust Storm, Extreme Wind, Hurricane, Tsunami, and Typhoon . New York City officials relied on IPAWS to issue WEA evacuation warnings in the days preceding Hurricane Sandy – which was the deadliest and most destructive event of the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane season. The city of Boston Massachusetts used WEA to quickly issue Shelter in Place warnings in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. The technological and operational success of the FEMA IPAWS system are not coincidental. The success of IPAWS is derived directly from the ongoing extraordinary efforts, and unwavering dedication of the public sector emergency management officials and the commercial telecommunications industry executives who have committed their resources and reputations to mitigation of the effects of weather and non ‐ weather emergencies through development, implementation, and dissemination of timely and reliable alert and warning information to the public. Effective Governance of alert and warning systems is essential to ensuring effective oversight, modernization, implementation, and resource allocation for emergency communications systems. In cooperation with the FCC, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), NOAA, telecommunications standards consortiums such as OASIS, and other commercial industry partners, FEMA continues to refine and