Expert offers advice on how to overhaul alert system

WASHINGTON-A leading expert has offered the White House and Congress recommendations to overhaul the nation’s emergency-alert system, based on eight years of research on the subject. The challenge requires a master plan far more involved than adding wireless and other technologies to the mix as contemplated by lawmakers, regulators and homeland-security officials.

The recommendations-obtained by RCR Wireless News and distributed to policy-makers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina-are the work of Kendall Post. Post, chief technology officer at Alert Systems Inc. in Madison, Wis., was a founding trustee to the now-defunct Partnership for Public Warning and contributed to a Clinton administration report, “Effective Disaster Warnings,” issued less than a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. Post holds nine patents and is author of “Strategy for a National Incident Command Architecture.”

The Clinton report, issued in November 2000 by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, embraces several of Post’s recommendations. OSTP currently is said to be reviewing Post’s four-point plan to create a national emergency information highway. Later this week, Post will give a presentation to the staff of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and other lawmakers.

In addition to renewing congressional interest in modernizing the country’s emergency-alert system, the destructive Gulf Coast storms have caused lawmakers to revisit the lack of progress in achieving public-safety communications interoperability since 9/11 and vulnerabilities to the nation’s critical infrastructure posed by cyber attacks.

Like a new $250 million bipartisan bill championed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)-which soon is to replicated by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) in the House-and a year-old Federal Communications Commission rulemaking, Post envisions integrating mobile phones and other wireless devices into a revamped public-warning system. The wireless industry, among other things, wants assurances that any reconfigured emergency-alert system is based on voluntary carrier participation, provides liability protection to carriers and vendors, and does not impose a technology standard.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, is working with mobile-phone carriers, public TV operators and others to develop a national platform from which digital emergency alerts could be distributed by a wide array of communications distribution systems. Outside of the nation’s capital, Airadigm Communications is launching a cell broadcast-engineered emergency-alert system in its Appleton, Wis., mobile-phone network.

Post’s blueprint for a public-private partnership extends well beyond technology itself, delving into the logistical details of planning, interagency coordination, performance standards and metrics, funding methodology and oversight.

The existing emergency-alert system dates back to the Cold War and depends on voluntary participation by TV, radio and cable broadcasters. But in a world today where many citizens have mobile phones and Internet access, the inability to leverage wireless, Internet and other technologies for public warnings represents a huge risk-and opportunity-for local, state and federal officials.

Post, saying the DeMint bill is well intentioned but does not go far enough, argues various administrative, fiscal and policy barriers stand in the way to realizing an emergency-alert system for the 21st century.

“Basically, it’s a lot like trying to construct a 100-story building with no architect, no plan, no general contractor, no building codes and no suitable financing pool,” stated Post.

As such, Post makes the case for the following:

• Federal participation in formulating a forward-looking master infrastructure plan for the nation’s emergency information highway infrastructure and setting performance standards, metrics or goals for each component of the infrastructure. … “For lack of a master plan, it’s nearly impossible for technology innovators to craft defensible business plans to attract development capital or for small businesses to risk major development programs.”
• Overall performance standards for public-warning technology and use of federal appropriations on public-warning technology. “Our studies show that the poor effectiveness and operation efficiency of existing emergency alert and notification systems create a fundamental barrier to domestic preparedness. They impede or preclude general usage of advanced incident management technology and methods in initial response and early real-time efforts. … Our technical feasibility development work, focus groups (elderly, deaf), and studies show that `smart’ receivers methods, the consumer electronic components of cell phones and other common devices, and existing infrastructure could dramatically improve the effectiveness and operational efficiency of public-warning and mobilization activities.”
• Requiring the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies (all federal agencies have some obligations to warn the public or mobilize resources in crises) to favor the pooling of a portion of money appropriated for state and local domestic preparedness. “This pool should be directed specifically to applied engineering according to the master plan. … With limited budgets, local disaster management agencies purchase partial, semi-custom solutions. No one gets any economies of scale. Federal appropriations for domestic preparedness would easily yield a 20-to-1 greater return on expenditures if engineering efforts were pooled and guided by a master plan.”
• A public/private partnership tasked with maintaining the master infrastructure plan; associated performance standards, metrics and goals; and oversight of the general contractor. … “The nation lacks an organization that is specifically tasked with maintaining the master infrastructure plan and associated performance standards, metrics and goals as science and technology advance. Without this umbrella organization, we will not be ready for a catastrophic disaster in the future, even if we correct immediate problems.”