Latest / The Alerting Authority / Why Emergency Alerts Fail: Craig Fugate on Public Warning Mistakes - Alerting Authority Rewind

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Why Emergency Alerts Fail: Craig Fugate on Public Warning Mistakes - Alerting Authority Rewind · The Alerting Authority

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, this is Eddie Bertola from the Alerting Authority, and I just want to thank everybody again for listening each week.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, taking a look at all the episodes and doing what I'm doing and trying to learn and improve your program and see just what advancements we can all make together.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for all of your comments.
• 0:24
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• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: We appreciate it because it does help us to continue to expand and share the different content that we have.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for your suggestions on what you want to hear.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we did a goat episode, and it really wasn't a goat episode, but I ended up being in a goat field for one of the suggestions that came up.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't, hey, go sit over there, but it really was about livestock and and domestic animals and evacuation and what can we do, especially when it comes to providing advanced notification.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so again, keep those ideas coming.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I doubt I'll be in a dump tank or anything else like that, but you'd you'd be amazed uh at some of the stuff that comes our way, and it's fun to try to make it all happen.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: With that said, this week what we're doing is we're gonna do a slight rebroadcast with some different editing for our very first podcast that came through with Craig Fugate.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that we're gonna do this again is it was the first one, and so as more and more listeners come on, we want to make sure to highlight really important podcasts that we've had.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um, there was more content than we could actually put in the podcast just because of time.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really hope you enjoy listening to this.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Craig is an amazing person when it comes to emergency management.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm sure he's amazing anyway, but specifically with everything that he's done and the the passion that comes um from his experience and listening to the different things that he's been a part of.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd invite you to take a listen again and see if there's things that you can do to keep improving.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, this is the Alerting Authority.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are here for you because every second has a story, and we're here to help share yours.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Craig Fugate.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: You have probably read his posts.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he has tremendous influence in this area, and what's really nice is it actually comes with the foundation of actual experience.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: You'll you see a lot of talking heads and other people that just you know talk about different things.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but one thing, especially with our guest today, is it's backed, and not only from the federal side, but again, he was the state, you know, representative in this emergency management director for Florida and has been through quite a bit.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so, Craig, number one, welcome.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's truly a pleasure to be able to talk to you.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um my my question is, and I'm saying this from an alerting authority where I am now, and I am a local alerting authority.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I used to be one for at a at a state level for California, a lot of complex issues.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, it's interesting whether I'm doing it locally now versus you know a large complex situation.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're having a lot of very similar issues, and and it's in the way that we're communicating or not communicating with the public and with our community.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, technology seems to be improving more and more, which is fantastic, but there still seems to be little things, and and whether it's personal or technological, I I really want to get your opinion because I feel you have your finger on the pulse and you have the experience.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: What do you see as are areas where, as I said, we're missing the boat or where we could really address?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, to be blunt, I think the problem isn't the technology.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: Technology is an enabler.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think the problem is um most local emergency managers and state emergency management agencies as alert originators um fail to issue warnings.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: And what I mean by that is, and to be blunt, there are a lot of situations that occur that people send out what I call notifications.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: They use systems that are not known as warning systems to send out alerts.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: And they're generally just without getting into naming uh types of technology, they're what I call the opt-in.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: People have to sign up for them to get the notifications.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I've seen a lot of campaigns and a lot of push to get people to download the apps, sign up for the text messages, and all that's great, except it never gets to the critical mask in the community.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, the acid test is not what I can get Monday through Friday when everybody's at work and I can, you know, I have full staff.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: My quick, my my challenge is Saturday and Sunday morning at about 3 a.m.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: with the most junior persons on the system.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Can you wake people up in the middle of the night when they need to be woke up that they need to do something?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And um we've seen time and time again where emergency managers have issued notifications.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't issue warnings, they thought they were issuing warnings, but I don't consider an opt-in system a warning system.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm not saying they're not good tools, but I think too many people don't understand that if only a small percentage of the population has opted in and I have to send a warning out where people need to act now, that system by its very nature is going to fail.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing is it doesn't utilize some of the features that the warning systems do.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: An example, I think a lot of emergency managers don't understand that wireless emergency alerts are not the same thing as text messaging.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Text messaging is a process by which it goes through the cell system and goes out individually and causes a load when you're sending out thousands to hundreds of thousands.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Wii a messages are actually taking advantage of the ability of cellular towers to broadcast with no bandwidth limitation to any device that can receive it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: So rather than having a know a number to contact and contact that number, uh a WIA message is a broadcast.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I I always kind of roll back, and I've been challenging emergency managers.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think we talk about a profession as you know, we prepare, we respond, we recover, we mitigate somewhere in there, they throw in resilience.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, that's nice, that's process.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: What do you actually do?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: And the one thing I think most emergency managers need to recognize, and it's a key responsibility, is to build and be able to implement a community-wide warning system that works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, not tied to personnel, that it's got to operate on the worst day with the least experienced person in the middle of the night, and you've got minutes.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Unlike notifications and other things, I think any warning that takes more than 15 minutes to originate, generate, and put out is probably not in time.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Because when you look at why you're issuing the warning, I need people to do something right now.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: If it's a chemical spill and I need them to shelter in place or evacuate, if it's a tornado warning, if it's a flash flood warning, people don't have a half hour to get the message.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: And again, Jeanette, this is some of the work you've been doing.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: We have a very compressed time frame to put all this into an actionable message that is limited by the technology for the duration of how many characters I can send, how long the message can be.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I need to be clear that when people get that, they received it.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's number one.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: But two, they understood it.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: And three, they knew what to do to change their outcome.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I think too many emergency managers start with the technology and forget um, you first have to detect, and fortunately for the for the US, the weather service does a pretty good job of our detections and issuing warnings for flash floods, for tornadoes, and other extreme weather.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: But you also have the chemical emergencies, the active shooters, the technology events that uh aren't going to originate from the National Weather Service.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I always go back and tell people the first thing is you got to detect an event has occurred.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: That, number two, there's something people need to do immediately to change that outcome.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Three, putting that into a message, and again, for a lot of people sitting down and writing a message that is what, two minutes in length, 300 plus characters, um, you're not writing literature, but you've got to get it done quickly and make sure you've got all the key elements in there, then you've got to transmit it.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And our two primary warning systems are the emergency alert system, which is radio television, satellite, and those systems, and wireless emergency alerts, which are cell phones.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: And these are two separate systems.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: And what a lot of emergency managers don't know, they can be separately issued.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because one of the advantages we had is it can be geofenced to specific areas by cell towers.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: But whatever method I use, I need to transmit that.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: People then need to receive it.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: This was the other advantage of cell phones.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: The way they were built and designed, it's an opt-out program, meaning when your new cell phone comes, it's going to receive wireless emergency alerts and go off if one's issued for the area you're in.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to register it, it doesn't track you.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's totally anonymous to your phone.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's just if that signal is broadcast by that cell tower and you're in range, you're going to get it.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: You can opt out of it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, everything except for a presidential message.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's one of the rules the FCC and FEMA were able to get in there.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: You got to you can opt out from the other messages, but you cannot opt out from presidential.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: So if you don't do anything, you're going to get a wireless emergency alert with a new cell phone if you're in an area where it's set off.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: But now that I've received it, did I understand it?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Did I understand it applied to me and that it's an immediate call to action?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have time to delay.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have time to, you know, go out and get on the internet and start researching and looking for other things and calling my friends and say, hey, I got this warning.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's a flash floor warning.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think we ought to be doing?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the time to act is usually in minutes.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the process, detection.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Then you have to make a decision.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: This is something that I need people to do something different, and it's time of essence.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: This isn't something I can wait and do a press conference for.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: I have to determine what that action is, and then I have to compose it in a message that is very compressed by the medium that I'm using.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Then I have to send that message into the integrated public alert and warning system and determine whether I am doing the full activation of both EAS and the wireless emergency alerts, or I'm doing something very specific that I'm only going to use wireless emergency alerts because it's a very specific location.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll see this a lot with wildfires and flash floods, where a countywide warning may be inappropriate for a very specific area.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Now that has to go through.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Turned out you can't break down if you never set it off.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where we see the problem.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: They're not using the warning system of the IPOL system of the EAS and the WIA.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: They're using a notification system that people have to opt in.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Often because they use it more frequently, it's more user-friendly to them because they're using it every day.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: It does not carry, I think, to a lot of people the same risk if they make a mistake.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: And they send out a notification.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: And we've seen too often that it wasn't received by a majority of people, or based upon the technology they were using, they received it days after the event because the system overloaded trying to process that many notifications.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, I'll I look at this and I'm going, why?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I I've come to this conclusion that emergency managers, unfortunately, are so afraid of making a mistake with setting off an EAS or a WIA message that they are mic shy.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so, even though the situation calls for it, and in retrospect, you see it, you have states like California, which you're from, that had to take the additional step the legislature now requiring that EAS and WIAs have to be activated if you're evacuating for a wildfire.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: The notification systems are not considered sufficient.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: Now, think about that.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: The legislatures are having to tell emergency managers how to do what is a fundamental responsibility of emergency management, which is issue warnings to the public.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I've come to the conclusion that we really need to be talking about emergency management for what we do, not the phases, not the process.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: And really emphasize the one universal thing that all emergency managers must be able to do is issue a warning to their community in a timely manner.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: Not just certain people, not just when that's you know they're staffed, but 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: And if you can't do that, I have a real question.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Can you consider yourself an emergency management agency?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, one of the things I find fascinating, nothing in the CEM or the accreditation program for certifying uh emergency management programs really get to this issue.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Can the community issue a warning?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: The closest we've seen is to the weather service program um recognizing communities that have taken these steps.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: But even that, I think, is a minimal standard.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so yeah, a lot of emergency managers aren't happy when I when I walk out into their state association meeting and basically say, if you can't issue a warning, why are you in this room?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Are you just doing grants administration?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to be able to do that.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: You raise such stupid point.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it it it like we have conversations with different alerting authorities.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: We travel around the United States and we're talking.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever there is a failure of any kind, the first thing that they generally point to, well, it's it's a technological issue.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a technology issue.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, I have yet to see uh a real technological issue as in how they're describing it.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a people issue, it's a training issue, it's a lack of confidence issue, it's a you just didn't do it type of issue versus that technology.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I appreciate you again focusing on that, where it's it really comes down to emergency managers out there needing to, as we say, you know, have confidence built upon competence to be able to do their job.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And Eddie, I mean, we've talked a lot about this, uh Craig, the the lack of training that's been available through FEMA independent study courses and other programs.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, there's been a focus within the public information officer programs, the external affairs, you know, the crisis communications, but that's not alert and warning.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very different style of communication.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: That um, yeah, we know that Emacs requires agencies to have some sort of a plan, but um, you know, in terms of training, it's been extremely limited.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: I have you have do you have thoughts about that?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, they do once a month testing, um, and that's usually the one person who's not around when you actually have to set the system off.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they don't do realistic training, and they don't sit there and uh really test staff on here's a scenario, generate the message.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Jeanette, you've worked with uh the FEMA team at iPalls and with Ben Ayers to really come up with some tool sets to help you wrap those messages, uh, but you're still uh very few people sit down, and again, this is one of the things that you don't do once a month and are proficient.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I started out as a county emergency manager as we were transitioning from the emergency broadcast system to the emergency alert system.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: So when I needed to notify people locally, um, I found that the emergency broadcast system was, you know, yeah, I could get into it, but it took time.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: We had a cable override system, which was uh a real joy to use because you used a touch tone phone, you couldn't see anything, and you were listening to audio prompts to know you got in there, and then you could do an audio message, and then you were supposed to come out.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: I had to use one during a chemical emergency and it locked up on me in the middle of a World Series playoff game, and I couldn't unlock the system.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I've been on the other end when you've got a warning going out and the technology failed.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh operator error, and you now have more people mad because their World Series game is being disrupted, not uh, you know, acknowledging the fact that there was a part of the community that was under uh shelter in place due to a chemical emergency.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so I've been there when stuff didn't go well and got yelled at by a lot of people.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um I've also had to use technologies because we didn't have good tools.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: I remember the old Motorola stored voice pagers.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: I put them in all the hospitals and nursing homes so I could get tornado warnings out to them because uh a lot of them didn't even have no other radio.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: And um I could use this for all kinds of things.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: I heavily leveraged NOAA radios.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: We bought a lot in Florida, um, and again, because we could do civil emergency messages over no other radio, which is a part, it's all integrated into back into the iPall system.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: But again, I've been there when we didn't have EAS.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was at FEMA when we implemented WIA, and I can remember going to New York City where we rolled it out there and in um DC.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the cell companies were extremely concerned, very reluctant and hard to push out uh because they thought this was going to be a huge issue.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: It turned out to be a relatively easy rollout.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, you started seeing more demand signal, and the I think the infrastructure got built out even faster than they the cellular, the major carriers could say.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's some things that run on the Wii system that weren't the original attempt, but probably get most people's attention, and that you know, such things as amber alerts for missing children.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I can remember there was a big you know screaming, hollering about California setting one off statewide for an abduction.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: It turned out it was an abduction and the and the child was recovered in Oregon.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: And after people got that information, they kind of backed off of that.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: But um, you know, I've had I I've been here when uh you know, we got a uh uh a Wii a notification, EAS notification in early morning hours in Florida.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and everybody was mad.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, it went off, and I got it.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is good.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, people got woke up and were cranky about it.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yeah, I get it.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: We've had nuclear attack warnings go out, and um, so I hear all that, and uh to a certain degree, I'm like, I get it, but if you want a perfect system, it will never get set off.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um there will be problems, we can work on those, part of that is training.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: But if you go back to the original uh concept of why do emergency managers exist, I think warning their public of immediate threats is one of our key responsibilities.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: But for a lot of jurisdictions, it's not a core competency.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that you're right.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've seen this as we've we've gone across the country doing training and um have really uh looked into what kind of training existed before we rolled out the message design dashboard across the United States with Bent Your Solutions helping to provide that training.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there literally was no training available to help emergency managers to understand the science behind the social science behind how people respond to alerts and warnings, effective message design, um, and thinking about how all of the pieces fit together across, including technology.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's a is a it was a real limitation.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've we've improved now that we have some standard courses that we can deliver.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, as a as a key competency, it's a real surprise to me that it's um it's not something that is done as well as it could be, given the emphasis on how how incredibly public it is.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: When something goes wrong, that is when people definitely notice.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times it's when they don't send anything.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I had CBS approach me and they were wanting to interview me about how the warning systems had failed in so many of these events.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but when they actually did the interview, the story had changed.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: What they found was the technology wasn't what was failing, it was the failure to issue the warning.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and they said, why?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, the best I can come up with are people are mic shy, they're afraid of making mistakes, they're more comfortable with systems they use every day, and their default is it's safer to send out a notification over a system um that if something goes wrong, it's only gonna get to a certain percentage of my population.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Problem with that is that's kind of not warning people.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and I think that, you know, I I I try to tell people look, there's no way that you're gonna be doing this over a career and not have things go south.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: And people yell at you and and you hear the threats, we're gonna fire people, you know, that's the easy answer for politics.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: But this goes back to you cannot put in a technological solution and then expect it to work well if you haven't trained the operators on using it and making sure they're comfortable with it, that they do the testing and the safeguards are built in to prevent the false messages.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: But the bias must always be to the warning goes out, not that we're going to make a mistake, you know, we're trying to eliminate making mistakes.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: And you only get that through repetition.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing is who's actually going to be issuing this warning?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this is something we we used to have a concept, and this goes back to civil defense, but we used to have a concept of what we call county warning points and city warning points, where we had the old Hootenhaller NAWA system as a primary call ring down system to reach those locations who would then send the warnings out through their community and over the emergency alert system.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: And the majority of those were not in emergency management shops.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: They were in the 24-hour uh dispatch centers, the public safety answering points.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's the other thing that I see missing is we usually have a disconnect between the emergency management shop over here, responsible for issuing warnings, yet there's nobody there 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And often that other agency is also very reluctant to be issuing warnings without somebody giving them permission.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I've seen this where in a spent outdoor warning system setting off the AS, where by the time it gets to somebody who can make a decision, if you can find them, you've already lost 15 to 20 minutes.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: And even then there may be hesitancy to issue the warning because they want more information.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: And you've seen this where the systems are built, they have a plan, but the person that decides to issue the warning was not available or was unreachable during the event, which fails the basic test.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Can you issue the warning 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: This is not an eight to five Monday through Friday job.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that goes back to are we incorporating the concept of our county warning points into our warning system, realizing that may be a separate agency and not under the control of the emergency management shop, but is their staffed with the ability to do it, but only if they are trained and they're enabled to issue those warnings?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: If it again takes you, you know, yeah, I've run into this where I've seen them like, well, we can do this remotely.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, who can do it remotely?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's like three people.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, are all three people on staff duty rosters so you know they're at all the time?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: Then how do you know all three are gonna even one of them's gonna be available?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um so again, it's it's a very fundamental thing.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think we've gotten away from so much of this as we've seen.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think people confuse a lot of our technologies with resiliency and disasters, as we saw with the cloud problems uh last week.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, there's technology is a tool, but people issue warnings.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: And if you haven't trained them and they aren't enabled to issue the warnings in a timely manner, it's not a technology issue, it's a people issue.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, that's a basic failure of local emergency managers.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, would you sum up your primary recommendation as people need to get trained?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: Training is a piece of it.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think they really need to go back and take a system approach and design their warning system, knowing that they have a mix of tools that they need to have a decision tree of when do I send out a notification.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: That may be good for a broken water main.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: No sense setting off Wheel or the emergency alert system for something that is only impacting a smaller area and is more of what I would call emergency public information.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's four-year information, so you can adjust to it.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Versus, I'm an active shooter in a downtown area.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: I have a wildfire that's crossing into a neighborhood.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: I have a flash flood warning uh that's imminent now, life-threatening flooding, where I need to get the largest number of people as quickly as I can.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it goes back to having that centralized point where all that comes in and not thinking that the weather service is always going to trigger this because some of these events are not going to come from the weather service.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: And having that 24-hour point in your community that can receive warnings, has the ability to make decisions about what level of tools they should use.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: And the bias should always be if in doubt, set everything off.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'd rather have people mad at me because I woke them up than they never woke up.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then that's where your training comes in.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because once you have your system and you identify who's going to set this off and under what conditions and all of that, now I got to train people against that.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Then I need to exercise against that, and I need to understand that uh this is 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so it cannot just be for your key folks during the day.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it certainly can't be this.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was actually doing an exercise in a community and I asked them to I generate a scenario where they're gonna have to activate the iPall system, EAS and WIA.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: I said, well, and they said, okay, we did that.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: I said, no, no, no.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to generate your message and actually show me mechanically how don't set it off, but I want you to go sit at the console and show me what tell me how you're gonna do this.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: They said, we'll have to get the manual.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, excuse me?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we have to get the manual.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, you just told me that there's like four of you that can do this if you're not here, but you're now telling me while you're here, you gotta go get the manual to do this.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm so you guys are really scaring me.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: I hope this is just a practical joke on your exercise simulator.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because this is the real deal.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: We got we might as well stop and get down to some basics.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one thing that we address all the time is stop just checking the box.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we've seen it in so many exercises where they it would trigger an IPAUS-related warning.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, okay, we checked the box, we're we've now done it.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always like, stop, no, like actually go through it.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: How would you write it?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: How would you put it in the system?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do you even remember your password to log in to your origination software?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever you stop them in that, I I will say some of them absolutely do know how to do it.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: But there are those that, at just as you said, have to say, well, let me go to the manual.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it's again, this is not an indictment against every program, but there's too many out there that they cannot issue a warning in a timely manner.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's I think the crux of the issue.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I've seen all kinds of levels.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, one of the things I'm glad that iPols began doing was let's now put in different scenarios so people aren't writing a test script for a test message, but actually make them start writing scripts for different scenarios because an active shooter is a lot different than a flash flood.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: And getting people comfortable sitting down and not knowing what the scenario is before they have to run the test, so that they're not pre-planning everything or pulling down the everything they to get ready and going, okay, we're doing the test, and your scenario for today is you got a flash flood at this location.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Issue the message so that they're used to this idea that it's not a canned every day, they do it the same way all the time.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know the next one may be okay, this one will be an active shooter uh in a downtown area, and you're only doing a Wii alert for the geographical area that law enforcement wants people to evacuate, you know, and give them different types of scenarios so it's not just the same test message.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, do the tornado warning, um, do the chemical spill.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Do the things that make them think through creating the message and then issuing the message.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think this is where you know a lot of the things that Jeanette is seeing is even when they can mechanically set the system off, the message is so poorly scripted that it is causing more problems.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think one of the better ones I saw was when the state issued a statewide EAS that the 911 system was down, except they never said what state it was.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: So all the adjoining states suddenly were getting bombarded with not when there's our 911 system down, to the point where one of the adjacent states actually had to send out a message to crew override the other message that it doesn't apply to this state.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you you would think that if you're putting it out there, you would include your location in your state.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, Jeanette's found that in many cases that's one of the things they missed.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: So then people get it and go, Who's this for?
• 31:13
  unknown: Right.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and especially if it's something that's happening, that's breaking, that they weren't expecting.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, there's a lot of good books.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think one that you know was written with by Amanda Ripley called The Unthinkable.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: And she calls this process, you know, the social science, they call it milling.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: If people aren't preconditioned for the event and they get something they don't expect, they're not going to react unless there's something in the message that prompts them to.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: So they'll start looking for other information or other sources to confirm, and that's time they don't have.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's why that you've got a short window to get their attention, make sure they understand it applies to them, what the action is they need to take, and they understand it and it applies to them.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's not something that a lot of people are comfortable writing in a limited number of characters or a limited number amount of audio unless they're practice at it.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's again, you know, part of the training is the equipment, but I think more training needs to be spent on actually crafting the message and understanding that we have notifications, we have alerts, and we have warnings.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: And they're different, they're not the same, although the technology people talk about alerting warnings, and I'm like, an alert just means I'm telling you something's happening, but I don't have any specific actions for you.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's like an asteroid's about to hit.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: There's not much you could do, but I'll tell you there's an asteroid happening.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this was similar to the debate, if you remember, after 9-11, why uh there was, you know, why wasn't the alert emergency alert system issued for the terrorist attacks?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: And the question was, what action did you want people to take?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: There was nothing specific.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it'd be one thing if you had more aircraft inbound or if you had a bomb threat somewhere, but just doing a national EAS to go, we're under attack, everybody already knew that.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's an alert.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's not inappropriate, but it doesn't require the emergency alert system or the you know WIA system going off.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, most of the time, use your notification software and have a press conference.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: And notifications fall in the same category.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: That broken water means probably more of an inconvenience versus an emergency.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think there's this hierarchy that people need to understand that um it's a very high level to get to a warning, but I should never hesitate if I think I need to issue the warning to get there.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is thank you.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is awesome.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Jeanette, anything else?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I have so many questions, but I don't want to keep you too much longer because I don't want to take up your time.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this has just been really it, these are the things that we talk about all the time.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate you spending the time with us and and sharing and um hearing it from you really makes a difference.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for sharing your expertise.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and my pleasure.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Our and again, our target audience with this program.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're not, I mean, great if uh we want the public to hear it, but it's really for emergency managers and alerting authorities, those that have, you know, the the button pushers, right?
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: The people who are responsible for overcoming that fear and actually hitting that button.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so the experiences that we draw from are going to be real experiences, different situations.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And for them to be able to hear this from you, I think is powerful.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, especially because as iPause was being fully developed, you weren't just a witness to it, you were a player in the development of it.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it helps us with understanding.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: So no, just thank you.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Huge appreciation.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully we'll see you at maybe at IAEM or some other event in the future.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I hope we do cross paths.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Only if Ben Air drags me there, but no, I don't I don't go to many of those conferences.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: Although I speak to the states because they're more fun, but I told I was in New Mexico, I told them the very same thing.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: If you can't warn, you can't evacuate and you can't shelter.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: How do you call yourself emergency managers?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wait, I'm waiting to see the t-shirt with that, with that on there.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: From crazy guys, that that line.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't warn, what are you?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it's it, but it again, I think when you guys are doing the training, one of the things you really need to hammer is the public doesn't get what emergency management is when you start talking about process.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: You say we prepare, we respond, recover, mitigate.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: What the hell does that mean?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: We issue the warnings.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: People understand that.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, people get mad when the bad, you know, when it you know it goes out accidentally and you know, everybody sets their hair on fire.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: Me, I'm always kind of like, well, damn, the thing worked.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty impressed with that.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: But um the thing I try to remind people is they're complaining, they're breathing, they have a pulse, they're alive.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's when you didn't issue it and we lost life that could have been prevented.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's unacceptable.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: And excuses don't save lives.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's that action.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we will let you go.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we look forward to hopefully having you back on in the future, and we can tell you all the improvements that people are making.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent!
• 36:41
  unknown: Okay.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: All right, thank you for it, Craig.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks again.