Local Government Agencies Express Support for Changes to FCC Wireless Emergency Alert Rules
The FCC is starting to see a wave of comments supporting proposed changes to its wireless emergency alert (WEA) rules, in response to a notice approved by the commission at its November meeting (see 1511190053). Comments aren't due until Jan. 13. Initial comments are mostly grassroots and appear to support the changes. The FCC proposed to allow longer WEA messages, inclusion of hyperlinks and narrower distribution of alerts. The comments were in docket 15-91.
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Jennifer Kirkland, filing on behalf of the Vail, Colorado, Police Department and Vail Public Safety Communication Center, said the proposal to allow messages of up to 360 characters of alphanumeric text was on the mark. “Expanding the message length would allow us to provide better, more detailed information in each alert, and reduce the total number of alerts needed to adequately notify our citizens of an emergency,” Kirkland wrote. Allowing inclusion of URLs in messages “could assist us in directing non-English speakers to a website where they could access emergency information in their own language.” More specific geotargeting of messages also makes sense, she said. “Our county is large, and sending a message to the entire county means that many people who receive the message will not be affected by it.”
The current 90-character messages are too short, advised Robert Greene, filing on behalf of the Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, Emergency Management Department. “From past experience 90 characters has not provided Emergency Managers with enough space to properly inform the public 1) of the danger 2) what action they should or shouldn’t take 3) how to get more information and/or who to contact for assistance,” Greene said in comments. But he said 360 characters is probably the right length: “Any more characters the message will become too wordy and lose its impact of urgency.” Greene also said the FCC should allow inclusion of URLs and phone numbers in emergency messages. Images might also help, he said, saying “a picture speaks 1,000 words.” Greene said the only concern is multiple images could slow transmission of alerts.
The Denver Office of Emergency Management & Homeland Security sees 360 characters as the “optimum” length for message, the agency said. The agency supports allowing the transmission of different types of information, the filing said. “We feel that extra information to the public would help improve communication and increase recovery speed,” the agency said. “If concerns about system capacities exist, maybe consider only allowing hyperlinks to ‘authorized’ sites that are known to only contain text-based information instead of videos or audio. Or maybe only authorize hyperlinks to .gov websites or .us websites.”