Update: EAS and All-Hazard Warnings

My May 17, 2006, post entitled More Effective Local Emergency Notification provided readers with information about the national Emergency Alert System (EAS) and the Inland Northwest Region (EAS) Local Area Plan. It was intended to encourage readers to better understand the principal ways critical emergency information about natural and manmade threats to life would be communicated to us by our federal and local governments. The links in that original post are still active.

On July 17, 2006, the Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service (CRS), provided its Congressional subscribers with an updated report entitled Emergency Communications: The Emergency Alert System (EAS) and All-Hazard Warnings. The current report summarizes the technology and administration of EAS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Weather Service's all-hazard network. It discusses related programs being developed by the Department of Homeland Security, and it reports current changes being discussed in the US Congress.

One of the more interesting sections of the updated report suggests ways that rural or smaller communities (e.g., Coeur d'Alene Reservation, Kootenai County, etc.) could use technology such as the Internet to immediately provide EAS and all-hazard warnings messages to their residents and visitors. Since the Coeur d'Alene Tribe has recently begun to provide high-speed Internet to persons living on tribal property, this report might be of some interest to the Tribe's chief information officer.