Local Officials Have a Powerful Tool to Warn Residents of Emergencies. They Don’t Always Use It.

[u/propublica_]

https://www.propublica.org/article/ipaws-emergency-alerts-local-official-failures

[u/propublica_]

We identified at least 15 major disasters since 2016 in which officials in the most-harmed communities failed to use IPAWS  to send emergency alerts to residents — or waited until it was too late. 

Each time these failures occur, journalists and others examining what went wrong “tend to treat it as though it’s a new problem,” said Hamilton Bean, a University of Colorado Denver professor who is among the country’s top researchers of public alert and warning systems. “In fact, it is the same problem we’ve seen again and again since at least 2017.”

Some highlights from our story that published this morning:

• Failure to Alert: Local officials can tap a federal warning system to send targeted alerts with evacuation orders and other actions. Many don’t use it.
  
• Lack of Access: To use the system, local governments must purchase software from vendors that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Many communities lack the money to pay for that.
  
• On Their Own: Local emergency managers cite a lack of training and resources that would help guide their decisions about sending alerts. 

Read our full story: https://www.propublica.org/article/ipaws-emergency-alerts-local-official-failures 

[u/Hibiscus-Boi]

Don’t most states EMA’s have the ability to send alerts? Why don’t they communicate with someone who can send alerts on their behalf? That’s how it worked in my state when I had alerting authority.

[u/Snoo-78544]

alert and warning is my specialty.

all I will say is

there's a difference between not having funding and people who make funding decisions not wanting to put funding towards emergency management

there's a difference between not having training and resources and not using the available resources (or having territorial pissing contests about who can it will do what)

there are practitioners doing excellent work with alert and warning that are finding things that maybe don't fully align with official alert and warning best practices or expand on them that the researchers and FEMA don't seem to want to hear

and just to be snarky, maybe this type of stuff are things iaem could actually be working on and making recommendations instead of trying to make emergency management month a thing

[u/Phandex_Smartz]

Well written article, thanks for the read and examples.

[u/adoptagreyhound]

It's still a problem getting the local governments to fund the access to any system. The town I lived in previously turned down a $5000 a year subscription to an Alert and Warning system that included both IPAWS access and text messaging for non-eas alerts that would have warned over 10,000 residents should an alert be needed. The powers that exist (not the EM) think that tornado sirens are the end all be all for alert and warning.

There have been at least 4 instances since where a system could have increased public safety, 2 involving shooters on the loose, one murder supect on the loose, and one suspicious vehicle that was trying to get kids in his car. Those are just the major incidents, there have been other weather related incidents where a specific text message (non-warning) would have been handy. Still no action to this day on a system. The town population is increasing by 300-500 people a year as the area grows. The council still thinks they are in Mayberry.