Course Summary

Table of Contents:

 

Course Overview

The goal of this course is to provide authorized public safety officials with:

Lesson Overview

This lesson provides an overview of IPAWS, its operation and benefits.

Upon completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

 

IPAWS Overview

The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) is a comprehensive, coordinated, integrated system that can be used by authorized public officials to deliver effective alert messages to the American public.

IPAWS is the nation's next-generation infrastructure of alert and warning networks. IPAWS ensures the President can alert and warn the public under any condition. Additionally, IPAWS will provide Federal, State, territorial, tribal, and local warning authorities the capabilities to alert and warn their communities of all hazards impacting public safety and well-being via multiple communication pathways. FEMA is upgrading the alert and warning infrastructure so that no matter what the crisis, the public will receive life-saving information via at least one path.

 

IPAWS Architectural Diagram

IPAWS allows alerting authorities to write their own message using commercially available software that is compliant with open standards. The message is then delivered to the IPAWS Open Platform for Emergency Networks (OPEN) where it is authenticated, and then delivered simultaneously through multiple communications pathways reaching as many people as possible to save lives and protect property.

The graphic below summarizes IPAWS architecture. We will go over it in detail later in this lesson.

 

IPAWS Background

Click on each link below to learn more about the background on IPAWS.

 

FEMA IPAWS Federal Partnerships

FEMA has partnered with recognized government and industry leaders and technical experts to ensure that the IPAWS program incorporates the latest technology and is practical for prospective users including local broadcasters, emergency responders and the general public. FEMA’s partners in the development of the IPAWS program include:

 

IPAWS Benefits–One Input, Multiple Outputs

Do you recall the IPAWS architecture diagram reviewed earlier? Recall that IPAWS allows authorized alerting authorities to write their own message using commercial software that is compliant with OPEN standards. A message only has to be input once, and once authenticated; it is delivered over multiple communications pathways, including the Emergency Alert System, commercial mobile services, Internet services, NWS services, state and local alerting systems, and alerting technologies for persons with access and functional needs.

 

IPAWS Benefits–Geotargeted

IPAWS will ensure that the President can reach the American people, but it also recognizes that most alerts and warnings are issued at a state and local level. Alerting authorities can create location-specific alerts that are scaled to cover areas as big as their entire jurisdiction or a much smaller area within their jurisdiction, depending on the delivery capabilities of the system used for public dissemination.

For example, alerts relayed via EAS and broadcast by a local TV station will cover the entire viewing area of the station. Alerts relayed by CMAS are required to be delivered to an entire county although some cellular service providers may opt to broadcast to smaller affected areas.

 

IPAWS Benefits-Standardized Messaging Format

The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is an open, non-proprietary digital message format for all types of public and private emergency alerts and notifications, which can be delivered across multiple communications pathways such as:

You will learn more about CAP in Lesson 3–Common Alerting Protocol Message Composition.

IPAWS Benefits–Rich Content (Multimedia)

In addition to emergency alert-required data, CAP alerts delivered by IPAWS may carry rich information such as images, audio, video, geospatial data, etc., that alert originators may include and disseminators may utilize to provide supplemental information to their audiences.

The photo at the right is a picture of Amber Hagerman, for whom the national America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response (AMBER) alert system was named.

 

IPAWS Benefits–Reliability, Redundancy, Security and Accessibility

IPAWS uses redundant alerting paths (TV, radio, cell phone, etc.) to increase the chance an alert will reach the public. IPAWS hardware and software components are designed to be reliable. The digital signature capability ensures message integrity and authenticity. Finally, CAP provides compatibility with public alerting systems, including those designed for multilingual populations and those with access and functional needs.

 

IPAWS Architectural Diagram and Operation

Federal, State, territorial, tribal, and local warning/alerting authorities are in charge of alerting their communities of all hazards using IPAWS-compliant alert origination tools.

Alert origination tools are software products used by emergency managers, public safety officials, and other alerting authorities to create and send critical life saving messages to the public.

The centralized alert aggregator/gateway receives CAP alert messages from various message origination/authoring tools, authenticates the sender, and sends the alert messages to IPAWS-compliant dissemination systems.

Multiple alert dissemination systems will have access to IPAWS:

 

Resources

 

Lesson Summary

This lesson provides an overview of IPAWS, its operation and benefits.

You should now be able to:

In the next lesson, you will learn about and apply the criteria for creating appropriate, effective and accessible alert and warning messages.

 

Lesson Overview

This lesson provides an overview of creating appropriate, effective, and accessible alert and warning messages.

Upon completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

Who Can Send IPAWS Alerts and Warning Messages?

Designated Alerting Authorities at the Federal, State, Local, Tribal and Territorial levels are authorized to send alerts and warning messages to their respective communities. After successfully completing this course, Designated Alerting Authorities may apply to FEMA for access to IPAWS on behalf of their jurisdictions.

There are a number of government programs with written plans that may indicate specific alerting authorities, including:

Collaborative Operating Group (COG)

A Collaborative Operating Group (COG) is a term used by IPAWS to designate an organization that is responsible for coordinating emergency management/incident response activities and public alerting. It typically consists of public safety officials who need to coordinate actions, communicate and exchange information in a collaborative environment. Examples of organizations that may constitute a COG include state, regional, county, or municipal emergency management/incident response organization, state law enforcement agency, Federal agency, military unit, public health department, fire services organization, mutual aid partners, etc.

A COG is established when a sponsoring organization executes a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with FEMA. A Federal, State, territorial, or local organization (as defined by the Stafford Act https://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?fromSearch=fromsearch&id=3564), a federally recognized Native American Indian tribe, or other private nonprofit organizations eligible under the Public Assistance Program may apply for authentication.

Applying for Alerting Authority

In addition to executing an MOA, the COG must also apply for specific alerting authorities, including the geographic extent of authority (e.g. county) and types of alerts (event codes, e.g. CAE - Child Abduction Emergency, discussed later in this course).

Before submitting to FEMA, the application must be reviewed by a state authority to ensure that the request is consistent with state Emergency Alert System, AMBER, other emergency operations plans and current practice. Further details regarding the application process may be found on the IPAWS website (https://www.fema.gov/integrated-public-alert-warning-system).

Criteria for Issuing Warnings

Deciding whether to issue a public warning can be a difficult decision. Ultimately it will be a matter of local judgment; however, it will be helpful to have an outline of decision criteria to assist you with the process. When deciding whether to issue a public warning, the following criteria can be applied:

  1. Does the hazardous situation require the public to take immediate action?
  2. Does the hazardous situation pose a serious threat to life or property?
  3. Is there a high degree of probability the hazard situation will occur?

Your State or Local EAS Plan or other emergency plans may provide criteria for issuing public alerts, including activating the Emergency Alert System, and if so, should be incorporated into your local procedures.

Application of Criteria for Appropriately Issuing Alert Messages

Your alert authoring software will provide fields that correspond to the previous three questions.  Each field will provide a list of values to select from. In order to be routed to the Commercial Mobile Alert System, the alert must contain certain values for these fields, reflecting “Imminent Threat:”

  1. Urgency: Immediate or Expected
  2. Severity: Extreme or Severe
  3. Certainty: Observed or Likely

Although not currently required, these values may also provide a good rule of thumb for relaying public alerts via the Emergency Alert System. An example of the application of these criteria by the National Weather Service for a Tornado Warning is shown in the adjacent graphic.

Alerting Criteria Derived from EAS Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) Protocol

Assuming you are starting from an occurring or impending potentially hazardous event, the first question is whether or not the event meets the appropriate definitions for warning or emergency, as defined by the  SAME protocol.

Your State or Local EAS Plan or other emergency plans may provide criteria for issuing public alerts, including activating the Emergency Alert System, and if so, should be incorporated into your local procedures.

 

Appropriate Event Names and Event Codes

Now let us look at the various event names and codes used for disseminating warning messages. All three major public dissemination services–EAS, CMAS, and HazCollect–use the same hazardous event names and corresponding event codes that are derived from FCC rules.

The following factors should be considered in the selection of appropriate event codes. Click on each link below to learn more about the factors:

Appropriate Use of Hazard-specific Event Names/Codes

The following list of event codes and names are generally related to the type of hazardous situation:

Warnings:

Emergencies:

Appropriate Use of Instruction-specific Event Names/Codes

If you wish to focus more on the instructions to the public than the particular hazard, there are two instruction-specific event names/codes available:

Components of Effective Warning Messages

Effective warnings are those that result in members of the public taking recommended actions to protect themselves. To help ensure that warning messages are effective, they must be issued in a timely manner and the following components should be included:

Accessible Alert and Warning Messages

How you write an alert/warning message is nearly as important as what you write. Poorly written warnings can undermine both understanding and credibility.

“Style" refers to how you write. Here are some style elements to consider when writing accessible and usable alert and warning messages. Be:

Accessible Alert and Warning Messages for Persons with Access and Functional Needs

As the message originator, you should keep in mind the needs of persons with access and functional needs.

Accessible Alert and Warning Messages for Persons with English as a Second Language

Non-English-speaking persons may not understand warnings that are provided in English. Communities with high percentages of non-English-speaking people should issue warnings in the primary language(s) of the population as well as in English.

IPAWS does not provide translation services, but it is capable of accepting and relaying alerts in multiple languages as composed by the alert originator.

Your alert authoring or other software programs may provide automated translation, but you should validate any automatically translated text with a speaker of the language to avoid errors. The use of pre-translated templates may serve to minimize the amount of information requiring translation for actual alerts.

Features of modern communication devices owned by end users can also provide translation of IPAWS alerts to the targeted language supported by the device.

 

Good and Bad Warning Message Example

Review each of the messages below and decide which a good and which a bad message is.

Message (A): 50 percent chance of dam failure. People in Ogdenville should consider evacuating.

Message (B): A dangerous wildfire is moving towards North Haverbrook and is expected to reach the north edge of town within the next hour. All persons remaining within the hazard area must evacuate now to a safe location to the west or east. A shelter is now open at Waverly Hills High School Gym. Pets are permitted.

Message (A) is an example of a bad message. It lacks certainty which may not motivate action. It does not give clear protective action by saying "consider evacuating" vs. "evacuate."

Message (B) is an example of a good message. It clearly states what the threat is, what area is threatened, and what specifically to do.

Best Practice Example—Using Planning Templates

The use of templates, tailored to those hazards likely in your warning area, can help prevent errors or omissions that can occur in moments of urgency. Using a template that incorporates pre-approved language can reduce delays in issuing alerts and warnings. Finally, if you need to use a language in addition to English, your templates can be translated in advance.

Your alert authoring software may provide the capability to create and reuse templates. If not, you can use word processing software to store your template and create your message to copy and paste into your alerting software. It is recommended that if you do utilize templates, customize them for the types of hazardous events that may occur in your area. The adjacent graphic shows an example of an evacuation warning template.

Sample Template

Disasterville Template for Emergency Alert System Message

Immediate Evacuation Order (EVI)

Replace all bracketed text below

(Headline field)

Immediate Evacuation Ordered for [geographic description of area to be evacuated]

(Description field)

Effective immediately, and extending until [further notice or expiration time], the Mayor of Disasterville has issued an evacuation order for all persons living, working, or travelling in the vicinity of [geographic description of area to be evacuated]. This area is at immediate risk from [brief description of the hazardous conditions].

(Instruction field)

To protect yourself and your family from this dangerous situation, the following actions are strongly urged:

*Leave your home or workplace immediately for a safe destination outside the hazard area via [specify recommended route(s) of travel].

*Take only pets and essential items such as medications with you.

[*Instruction related to school children if applicable, e.g. Do not pick up your children from school. They are being evacuated by school officials.]

A shelter operated by [organization, e.g. the Red Cross] is available at [address of public shelter].  If you need evacuation assistance, call 555-9999.  Do not call 9 1 1 unless you have a serious personal emergency.  For further information, tune to radio station KKKK.

Factors Influencing Public Response to a Warning

Accessibility of alert and warning messages refers to whether individuals hear and understand them.  An appreciation of the multiple social factors that influence accessibility is useful. The primary response factors that influence the public’s response to a warning are:

Additional Factors Influencing Public Response to a Warning

The following additional social factors also influence the extent to which warnings and alerts are received, comprehended, and heeded:

Myths Associated with Public Response to Warning Messages

The following are popular myths associated with public response to warning messages:

Resources

Lesson Summary

This lesson provided an overview of creating appropriate, effective, and accessible alert and warning messages.

You should now be able to:

In the next lesson, you will be introduced to the Common Alerting Protocol and various channels used for disseminating IPAWS alert and warning messages.

 

Lesson Overview

This lesson provides an introduction to the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), its component elements, and their associated values. It also identifies how a CMAS message is mapped from CAP.

Upon completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

 

What is Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)?

The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is an XML-based data format standard for exchanging alert data among many different technologies and systems. CAP allows a warning message to be sent simultaneously over many CAP-compliant warning systems to many different outlets (such as radio, television, cell phones, Internet).

CAP is a well established international technical specification developed by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). The concept grew out of an earlier effort of the Partnership for Public Warning.

 

CAP Data Elements

This lesson describes some of the commonly used data elements and their corresponding values that the alert originator either selects or composes using CAP-compliant alert authoring software. Note that your software may provide slightly different labels for these data elements:

 

"Mapping" between CAP and CMAS

The primary purpose of a CMAS message is to briefly alert the recipient that a hazardous event is occurring (or will occur) in the geographic area in which the recipient is located.  The CMAS specification limits the message to not more than 90 characters.

As noted in the previous section, CMAS does not use any values from the CAP description, instruction, or area description elements for “imminent threat” alerts.  Instead, IPAWS generates text derived from other CAP elements to compose the message using a specific format.

 

CAP to CMAS Message Conversion Example

Using this format for generating a CMAS message from CAP elements, here is an example of a message converted to CMAS.

CAP Message

CMAS Message

Event Code: FFW

Flash Flood Warning

Geocode:  006109

In this area

Expires: 2003-06-17T16:00:00-07:00

until 7:00 PM PDT

Response Type: Avoid

Headline: FLASH FLOOD WARNING ISSUED FOR TUOLUMNE COUNTY

Description: THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN JACKSONVILLE HAS ISSUED A

* FLOOD WARNING FOR URBAN AREAS AND SMALL STREAMS IN NORTHERN TUOLUMNE COUNTY

* UNTIL 700 PM PDT

* AT 523 PM PDT...WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED AN AREA OF STRONG AND SLOW MOVING THUNDERSTORMS PRODUCING VERY HEAVY RAINFALL. THESE STORMS HAVE ALREADY PRODUCED RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 5 TO 7 INCHES...WITH ANOTHER 2 TO 4 INCHES LIKELY THROUGH 700 PM PDT THIS EVENING.

Instruction: PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

DO NOT DRIVE YOUR VEHICLE INTO AREAS WHERE THE WATER COVERS THE ROADWAY. THE WATER DEPTH MAY BE TOO GREAT TO ALLOW YOUR CAR TO CROSS SAFELY. MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND.

Avoid hazard.

 

Resources

 

Lesson Summary

This lesson provided an overview of the commonly used Common Alerting Protocol elements and their associated values. It also identified how a CMAS message is mapped from CAP.

You should now be able to:

https://emilms.fema.gov/IS247a/lesson1/IPAWS_Print.htm