"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

• versight 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
• ther 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

• f 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

• f Homeland Security (DHS), NOAA, telecommunications standards consortiums such

as OASIS, and other commercial industry partners, FEMA continues to refine and

expand the IPAWS system’s service offerings in providing alert and warning to the

• public. FEMA is engaged in a multi‐year capitalization effort focused on

modernization of legacy Primary Entry Point (PEP) stations, which are privately

• wned radio broadcast facilities that extend transmission of IPAWS alert and warning

information to remote areas of the country where public infrastructure or commercial cellular coverage may not be available. Government assistance in sustainment of these privately‐owned facilities, strengthens the public – private partnership, ensures standardization of critical nodes of the IPAWS infrastructure, and better serves the needs of the community during an emergency. Management of public alert and warning systems must include the requirement for system owners to establish thorough and effective documentation processes to inform and control message origination and distribution. Officials at all levels must coordinate their respective public alerting plans with neighboring or

• verlapping state and local jurisdictions in advance to reduce the risk of duplicative
• r contradictory public messaging prior to and during emergencies. System owners

must commit the resources necessary to establish an ambitious public outreach and information campaign to educate citizens about how and where alerts will be

• distributed. Operators and maintainers throughout the enterprise must receive

extensive initial and periodic refresher training on system capabilities,

modernization, and limitations. These personnel must then practice message

• rigination and distribution procedures in realistic and challenging training and

exercise simulations to increase the likelihood that origination officials will precisely adhere to established alert and warning notification procedures during actual emergencies when lives and property are at stake. No single communications system will alert everyone. Not every citizen will be watching television or listening to a radio. Not everyone will hear sirens. Every home doesn’t own a weather radio. Not all mobile devices will enable the local alerting mobile app. Reaching the whole community requires communicating on as many pathways as possible. When used in conjunction with other common alerting processes such as local emergency alert systems, reverse‐dial telephone systems, SMS registration systems, message boards, social media, and sirens, IPAWS becomes a powerful and effective tool in the Public Warning tool kit. IPAWS does however represent what is perhaps the most effective method for simultaneous distribution of alert information to multiple communications channels, for posting detailed alert and warning data to web pages and social media forums, and holds great promise for integration of alerting applications into the assistive technology industry. In the future, FEMA IPAWS must continue to expand both content and

• distribution. Currently, the program office is in the process of assessing the

feasibility of a private sector technology that is under development using the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 standard to transmit media‐rich, data messages to mobile, portable, and fixed devices without interrupting the

• programming. This capability could deliver detailed emergency data to the public

including photos and video of evacuation routes, storm tracks, and shelter

• information. By leveraging the ATSC 3.0 technology in collaboration with the

assistive technology industry, it may be possible for IPAWS to extend distribution of media‐rich alert and warning content to both the access and functional needs, and non‐English speaking communities. FEMA plans to continue its efforts with Caltech, the University of California at Berkeley, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) to evaluate the feasibility of integrating data obtained from the 400 sensors that make up California's Early Earthquake Warning System (EEWS) into the IPAWS infrastructure. The goal of the EEWS is to warn people seconds after an earthquake has started so they can move to safety before the shaking reaches

• them. System latency continues to challenge success however, since the EEWS

sensors must be capable of sending alerts faster than seismic waves travel through the Earth. IPAWS is in dialogue with the commercial cellular industry to examine

solutions to system latency that may meet very stringent timeline requirements for delivery of shake alerts. However, investment in seismic sensor technology has thus far outpaced cellular industry investment necessary to enable delivery of sensor data to the public before an earthquake begins. Cyber security applications for public alert and warning systems must continue to evolve in an attempt to outpace the threat. The primary focus for cyber investment within the IPAWS infrastructure will remain in the areas of access control and separation of duties. The Open‐Architecture model upon which IPAWS is based presents unique challenges to both areas. Access management and control

• f IPAWS origination privileges is accomplished through a centrally managed

licensing and certification process to verify that message origination applicants have satisfied all system origination and IPAWS‐Open interoperability and security

• standards. Administration of this process can be a particularly daunting task for the

program office, given that responsibility for message origination rests with the 64 state‐level, 700 local‐level, and 665 public agencies who actually comprise the IPAWS system. As FEMA seeks to implement an environment of data‐driven decision processes throughout the emergency management enterprise, IPAWS must likewise adapt its infrastructure to leverage the value of Big Data. The program office has embarked

• n a plan to improve IPAWS’ ability to quickly “consume” and synchronize ever

increasing quantities of disaster data from unconventional sources such as local emergency managers, the media, and first responders to refine and optimize emergency alert and warning information for a given area. The likelihood of success in focusing large amounts of data quickly depends upon accurate identification of Key System Performance Indicators for a given event. Emergency alert and warning systems must focus only on information that informs action on the part of survivors and first responders. Failure to identify which information sources are critical and which are not will cost time and potentially risk lives and property during a disaster. IPAWS is examining several data technologies to enhance big data processing, storage and visualization. FEMA has plans to invest in cloud‐based, and off‐the‐ shelf analytics solutions to improve security, reduce storage and processing costs, and enhance the services it provides to the public. Going forward in a Big Data environment will require that IPAWS transform existing processes for managing, merging and governing wide varieties of data obtained from multiple sources. In closing, I would like to emphasize that the success of FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System is the result of more than 60 years of cooperation between public sector emergency alert and warning officials at all levels who have continuously sought new and better ways to inform the public when faced with

disaster, and scores of dedicated private industry partners who've worked cooperatively to provide the technical innovation and infrastructure capacity necessary to satisfy emerging requirements. Together these efforts have enabled the recovery of abducted children, the protection of property, and the preservation of lives through the delivery of timely, accurate, and targeted advanced alert and warning information to the public when facing disaster. IPAWS serves as but one of many effective resources in the early notification toolkit available for use by emergency officials at the federal, state, local, and private sector‐levels. Emergency

• fficials must recognize that there is no single communications solution however –

including IPAWS – that is capable of informing all segments of the population under all conditions. Instead, we must leverge every system, and every method available to inform those at risk when disaster strikes. Critical work remains ahead for those

• f us in both the public and private sectors who are committed to improving the

accuracy of the information, reducing the delivery time, and extending the distribution of alert and warning information to underserved segments of the

• population. However the future of public alert and warning is filled with promise,

and I am confident that so long as public and private sector cooperation continues in this area, the success experienced during IPAWS first 60 years will continue long into the future. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to speak with you

this evening about a mission and a system that I am passionate about.