Patrick McFadden, Executive Director of the York County (Pennsylvania) Emergency Management Agency.

This report is a composite of thoughts, observations, feelings and experiences of officials in local emergency management agencies from across the United States.

Current Status. The American public expects effective and timely both warnings and aid when lives and property are threatened. Unfortunately, US public alerting, mutual aid mobilization and interagency notifications depends upon a patchwork of obsolete, uncoordinated and ineffective communication tools and processes dating from the 1950’s.

The US has historically taken a "home-rule" approach to emergency management. This arrangement generally serves the public well for small local emergencies. Unfortunately, it has also created a highly fractured market that is unappealing to technology developers in the private sector. No national EM association has enough clout to cause consensus on emergency information dissemination technology and standards. And the federal government has not filled the void with either policy or R&D funds in 50 years. As a result, enormous advances in communication and computer technology have heightened public expectations but produced no real improvement in the speed, accuracy or reliability in the flow of public safety information. Because of this, public confidence in EM is eroding and the number of lawsuits against governmental agencies after disasters is rising.

How far has the effectiveness of public alerting systems fallen? EM officials with jurisdictions over 5.5M people were asked how many people they could reach within 15 minutes of the onset of major threat. Using all of the alerting systems at their disposal – sirens, EAS, telephone ring-down, and weather radio - officials indicated they might reach 23% of residents at 3AM and about 40% at 10AM. Mobile lifestyles, satellite TV home air-conditioner noise and other factors continue to erode these numbers. Emergency officials find it extremely difficult to reach people that are deaf, hard-of hearing, live in rural areas, work on factory floors, stay in hotels and motels, or shop in malls with current systems. Worse yet, all types of exiting public alerting systems have failed completely on numerous occasions at critical times.

Current public alerting systems have inherent weaknesses. Their general dependence on AC power is a recipe for catastrophe in some scenarios. Call blocking, unlisted numbers, fax and Internet lines greatly limit the effectiveness of telephone ring-down approaches. Already 8% of the US public relies exclusively on cell phones that are not tied to specific locations. If local officials cannot reach populations with "Population Stabilization," "Protective Action Recommendations" messages, or issue evacuation or reserve mobilization orders on short notice, the value of domestic terrorism training and other preparations are largely wasted.

Existing wide-area public alerting systems cause "warning fatigue," "call floods" into 911 centers and other human response problems. Advanced storm-cell radar, plume cloud modeling and other computer-based tools do generate precise geographic coordinates that would allow real-time alerting of precise geographic areas to solve some of these problems. But local officials have no means for delivering information to the public with such precision. As a result, Florida and Georgia officials say many thousands of households threatened by hurricane Floyd moved needlessly, contributing to massive road congestion problems. This has profound implications for certain terrorism scenarios.

The interagency notification component of public safety is equally problematic. National and state agencies originate public safety alerts and information from hundreds of locations. Each agency has its own protocols and message formats. Information arrives or is relayed to 15,000+ local EM agencies by phone, fax, National Guard radio channels, packet radio, special wire lines, satellite feeds, the Internet, state law enforcement networks, couriers in the form of state highway patrol officers and the news media. Many information distribution channels lack a backup. Few channels confirm message receipt or provide authentication codes. Few indicate message urgency audibly or visually so priority messages are routinely buried in fax machine bins with administrative material. Because of the multiplicity of channels and protocols, each of the thousands of local agencies and 911 centers duplicates unnecessary technical, procedural and training effort and costs. Worse yet, this complexity contributes to human errors.

Operational procedures at the onset of relatively common events like tornadoes already run 10 to 15 minutes and more. In recent years, sirens have activated as much as 7 minutes after the tornado has leveled a town. Cell phones, digital radio, intelligent highway and other new civilian alerting channels dictate still more procedural complexity and delay.

Many emergency situations like wildfires defy geopolitical boundaries so local officials routinely notify an array of agencies with jurisdictions over adjoining lands. When those agencies are closed at night and on weekends, this sequential telephone calling process is painfully slow. In major natural disasters or acts of domestic terrorism, such delays become nightmares.

Well-intentioned federal agencies offer databases of information that can be invaluable to incident commanders in emergencies. But while much of this information is now posted on the web, local EM officials don't have the time to "surf" for the most current version at the onset of a crisis. Even if they did, data formats are often incompatible with the computer-aided software of local agencies. In some disasters, communication lines to the data would be gone so critical data needs to be pre-positioned on local sites. But individual local EM agencies don’t have the staff or skills to constantly gather and translate all the relevant data for their geographic area.

Federal agencies are often organized according to specific public hazards and they try to mitigate problems with single-purpose information dissemination networks and protocols. But local EM agencies can't afford single purpose solutions for every possible emergency scenario - wildfire, terrorism, chemical weapon stockpile, hurricane, etc, etc. - especially when each solution requires separate training, adds procedural complexity, increases maintenance budgets, and doesn't interface with other systems or software. Each new federal program like the CDC’s Health Alert Network initiative further entrenches the patchwork approach to US emergency management.

It’s clear the United States needs to modernize the entire information delivery / dissemination process at the core of all emergency management activities. Band-Aid fixes to current technology have not worked and cosmetic improvements to current processes are not acceptable.

It’s clear that US emergency management needs a master technology vision or blueprint because few technology developers in the private sector are now willing to sign up for a cruise on a technology ship with a thousand independent rudders.

It’s clear that US emergency management needs private sector innovation. Rich Davies of the Western Disaster Center stated recently, "The Netscape Internet browser grew from an idea to a $2B company in the span of 5 years while EM technology hardly budged."

It’s clear that technology is now advancing more rapidly than government agencies can make decisions, get moneys appropriated and deploy systems. NOAA is still deploying the weather radio system after 50 years while recording media and other consumer technology have advanced 3 and 4 generations.

It’s clear that individual federal agencies lack a "big-picture" perspective of the problems confronting local emergency agencies so it’s highly unlikely the federal government can provide an integrated solution. As an example, the all-hazard warning focus of this roundtable is only one part of a larger but generally unrecognized overall emergency information delivery problem. The entire problem must be addresses together for optimum results and use of limited budgets.

After decades of no real advancement of alert and notification technology, it’s clear we need to find a new means to overcome the barriers of "home rule" and uncoordinated federal activity.

We recommend the creation and endorsement of a small non-profit public / private or quasi-governmental commission to craft and maintain the national vision for all EM information dissemination technology. Let’s call that organization USEM for purposes of this discussion.

USEM should be free of federal rules as per the US Post Office. Commission members should be representatives of national EM associations, private sector EM technology developers, and federal government agencies including FEMA, the federal counter terrorism taskforce and the Department of Defense.

USEM should prepare a EM technology roadmap at least every 5 years as is now done with the federal radio navigation plan. The commission should have authority for the Natural Disaster Information Network. The commission should foster relevant standards and protocols work. USEM should commission relevant research and provide peer review.

Periodically, major threats force a convergence of federal, state and local emergency management interests that foster at least de facto standards. The threat of Soviet nuclear bombers in the 50s led to "civil defense" sirens and the EBS/EAS system. 50 years of societal and technical change, the emerging threat of domestic terrorism and other factors are again forcing a convergence of interests. This opportunity must not be squandered!

On behalf of local emergency management throughout the US, I ask:

• That federal agencies understand their uncoordinated activities cause problems with serious consequences for local EM agencies.
• That federal agencies relinquish individual information dissemination networks in favor of a standardized fault-tolerant all-hazards network.
• Your support for a public/private commission to coordinate that standardized fault-tolerant all-hazard network, and to oversee related standards and development activities on behalf of emergency agencies at all levels of government.
• Your funding of the innovative alert and notification technology needed by EM agencies at every level of government.

The good ship USS Emergency Management needs a rudder. We can’t afford another 50 years of inaction.