DHS Accused of Slowing National Move to More Effective Emergency Communications

Art Botterelli, manager, Community Warning System, with the Contra Costa County, Calif, Sheriff’s Office said DHS is the “elephant in the room” and has shown signs of “schizophrenia” in its pronouncements on CAP. “A number of states and jurisdictions are implementing CAP-based alerting systems,” Botterelli said. “Vendors and broadcasters are working together to resolve the backward-compatibility issues… The International Telecommunications Union had adopted CAP as the international standard. I really think it’s time for DHS to lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way.”

“Please don’t hold up progress in this space by holding all the implementers in suspense about how or when or on what basis or in what preexisting environment… you actually adopt CAP,” Botterelli said in remarks that drew applause from the audience.

“Let me say there is a general of frustration that exists in the broadcast engineering community with the general lack of progress,” agreed Clay Freinwald, chairman of the Society of Broadcast Engineers’ EAS Committee. Freinwald said DHS’s work on CAP shows signs of “analysis paralysis… I tend to feel that is what goes on here in all too many cases. I'm not necessarily going to use Nero and Rome but perhaps that might be an analogy that would be fitting.”

Lance Craver, program manager, Integrated Public Alerting and Warning System with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said DHS has to move slowly but is moving forward. “Why are we moving so slow?” Carver said. “The real prudent question is we need to assure ourselves as emergency managers the products we're buying actually perform as specified.” FEMA is putting in place a test bed to test how CAP works and is examining CAP in more detail. “There’s a lot of pieces that have to be in place,” he said. “We need to assure ourselves as emergency managers that the products we're buying actually perform as specified.”

But Botterelli accused DHS of practicing “the standing high jump,” which he said is a common Washington practice. “This is something you did when you didn’t really want to do something but you couldn’t say no,” he explained. “What you did is you expanded the scope. You said ‘we can’t do that unless we also do this and of course that means that we have to include this. Then of course it would make no sense to do that unless we do this, this and this.'” He added, “You expand the scope until it becomes patently impossible and everybody agrees to go home.”

Panelists said states are moving forward on their own while DHS still evaluates CAP. “We are going to have another patchwork quilt,” Botterelli warned. “Waiting is nothing but stupidity in my view, because we have the technology, we have the know how,” Freinwald said. “But we're sitting around scratching and thinking.”

Broadcasters said during the summit they could become irrelevant as providers of emergency alerts, especially after wireless carriers begin to broadcast alerts to cellphones. “If you notice very carefully what is happening in the emergency management community… they have migrated to e-mail alerts, instant web positing, reverse 911, digital billboards,” said Dale Gehman, a consultant to the broadcasting industry. “They're taking a look at us as an interesting historical player that when you try to get into the system [the alert] may or may not go out.” Gehman added, “It’s a wake up call. It’s time for CAP.”

Suzanne Goucher, chair of the Maine State Emergency Communications Committee and of that state’s association of broadcasters, said broadcasters need support from the government. “We're taking the baby steps now,” she said. “From the perspective of my broadcasters, we made the investments necessary to comply with EAS… If the federal government has an interest in creating and maintaining a warning system that is robust and reliant the federal government should pay for it.”