EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM TO GET MUCH NEEDED REVAMP

The FCC Media Security & Reliability Council (MSRC) is also seeking to upgrade the system, and the FCC is considering recommendations for strengthening the system issued by the Partnership for Public Warning (PPW), which were sent to Secy. of Homeland Security Thomas Ridge earlier this year. The FCC will also ask what impact the digital transition will have on EAS, said Jim Dailey, dir. of the FCC Enforcement Bureau’s Office of Homeland Security. “We will address those issues and determine the future of EAS and its role as the public alert mechanism. There are things that can be improved,” Dailey said.

Meanwhile, many broadcasters questioned EAS’s usefulness in the age of modern technology. Disney Vp-Govt. Affairs Susan Fox told the FCC in March that national broadcasters are more effective in communicating a national emergency than EAS. “I think what we do, the information that we provide, is greater and broader than EAS,” Fox said.

“The great myth to the American public is that the President can speak on the EAS system,” Fla. Assn. of Bcstrs. Pres. Patrick Roberts said. The White House had been hooked up directly to the major 4 networks in order to interrupt programming, but under the Clinton Administration, the lines were cut for budget reasons, Roberts said. “It shouldn’t be primarily a local system if the American public thinks it’s a national system.”

When hurricane Andrew hit Fla. in 1992, many lives were saved by advance warnings, but it wasn’t EAS that informed people of the impending danger, it was extensive local media coverage, officials said. In that case, the EAS system was never activated. “There was constant coverage of Andrew 24 hours before it touched down, so there was no need to set it off,” said Roberts. The system has never been activated on the national level, not even during the Sept. 11 attacks. “We need to figure out what we need it for and who will use our system,” Roberts said.

No Structure to an Unmonitored System

Traditionally, the system had been voluntary. Once a signal is initiated by local or state law enforcement, the broadcaster decides whether to air it. This setup is part of the problem, said Jim Gabbert, chmn. of the Cal. State Emergency Communications Committee: “There is no structure on the state and local level and no guidance for the broadcaster.” Broadcasters have refrained from airing too many warnings from the weather service, in fear of creating a “cried wolf” situation. “My fear is that it’s going to take lots of lives before officials wake up to this problem.”

Gabbert said emergency committees like his are a dying breed that has been ignored by the FCC. “The FCC has dropped local and state-wide emergency alert systems,” he said. In the mid 1990s each state had an appointed chair on the emergency communication committee that would coordinate with the FCC on each state’s emergency plan. But the FCC has moved away from the system, he said. Dailey said the FCC doesn’t want to intervene too much: “We have no guidance who can or should issue an alert. We don’t want to make it restrictive.”

Gabbert said he supports deregulation, but claims the FCC has become too deregulated: “Don’t get me wrong, I've been the biggest champion for deregulation, but this has gone too far.” Gabbert no longer has anyone to report to and isn’t sure if his unpaid position would be filled if he left.

The trouble with the system isn’t the technology, an NAB spokesman said. “For the most part the system works,” the spokesman said. But it’s rarely activated. The bigger issue is how the alert is communicated to the broadcaster. Gabbert said that wasn’t a concern when the emergency committees were closely monitored by the FCC.

Only a handful of states has a communications alert protocol, which sets a network of codes indicating the scope of pending danger and who has the authority to trigger the system, Roberts said. Some of the state plans are 8 years old and need to be updated, he said. At the MSRC hearings Roberts said he was shocked to learn that 10 states had no legitimate EAS plan, including N.Y.

Fla. has one of the more advanced systems. The state activates emergency alerts 3-6 times a year, mainly to inform residents of tornadoes, Roberts said. An EAS activation is initiated by the county emergency management coordinator, the National Weather Service or state division of emergency management. The local emergency managers immediately contact the local primary broadcaster in the area about the danger. Fla.’s system outlines exactly who needs to activate the system and contact a station. The system, as in all states, is automated and set to send off alerts based on codes established by each state.

If monitored, this type of system is efficient, Roberts said. But he agreed with Gabbert that the system has to be better connected with governors and the President. “Now we have no dedicated line to talk to. We got to go to reporters in the newsroom,” he said. Roberts suggested that it would cost $25 million-$50 million to hook those officials up to a national alert network.

In certain situations, EAS has been useful. In Dec. 1998, Va. officials activated the system when a truck carrying 44,000 lbs. of sodium hydrosulfide overturned. People living within one-half mile of the accident were advised to stay indoors until the situation stabilized. Broadcasters in tornado-prone areas frequently use the system as well.

In Feb. 2002, the FCC amended EAS to include child abduction, or AMBER, alerts. The new code added to EAS has saved hundreds of children, Roberts said. Also at that time, the FCC authorized cable and wireless cable systems serving less than 5,000 subscribers to install just an EAS decoder, rather than both an encoder and decoder to receive the alerts.

Broadcasters can be fined up to $8,000 if they don’t have alert systems in place or if there is a defect in the system, Dailey said. From June 2003 to June of this year there were 15 notices of apparent liability issued against radio stations by the FCC for EAS violations and 43 issued in the same time frame the prior year, Dailey said. The violations are typically discovered during random inspections about a non-related complaint, he said.

The PPW is proposing to provide a strong management oversight of the system and clear guidance on key issues such as new technologies, state plans, standards, training and public education. The larger challenge is to create a truly effective national public warning capability that can get emergency information to citizens wherever they are, day or night, and regardless of their special needs, Gabbert said.

As a side issue, the NAB said it may revisit its argument that cable operators be prevented from overriding local channels during an emergency, the spokesman said. In the late 1990s the NAB urged the FCC to force cable operators to install equipment that would override cable channels, but not broadcast channels’ EAS announcements. Cable groups argued that such equipment would be too expensive.

Last week, the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) agreed to a new method for issuing local and national warnings and increase the effectiveness of Public Alert devices (CD June 18 p8). Public Alert is an outgrowth of EAS. Unlike EAS, whose warnings are aired at the discretion of a broadcaster, Public Alerts are triggered by warnings received directly from federal govt. sources.

Earlier this month, Sage Alerting Systems, which helped develop EAS, urged the FCC to require EAS compliance in the in-band on-channel (IBOC) technology (CD June 9 p11). Sage said EAS compliance in the IBOC domain should be required now to ensure that listeners on AM and FM stations tuned to the digital data stream don’t miss potentially life saving messages.