Wireless Emergency Alerts Explained with Rob Dale

What emergency managers see when they send an alert isn't always what the public receives.

In this episode of Alerting Authority, Jeannette Sutton, Eddie Bertola, and special guest Rob Dale explore how Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) appear on different devices and why those differences matter. The discussion dives into PBS Warn, message design, alert effectiveness, and common mistakes emergency managers make when creating warning messages.

Rob shares insights from reviewing thousands of alerts across the country, highlighting both best practices and recurring issues that can impact public understanding and response. The conversation also examines how WEA has evolved from 90-character messages to today's richer capabilities, including longer messages, links, and future enhancements. Emergency managers, public information officers, and alerting professionals will gain practical guidance for improving warning messages and better reaching their communities.

Topics Covered:

•  Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) 
•  PBS Warn 
•  Emergency alert message design 
•  Public warning best practices 
•  Alerting and warning research 
•  Emergency management communications 
•  Mobile alert differences between Apple and Android 
•  Public safety messaging 
•  IPAWS and WEA evolution 
•  Crisis communication 

Rob Dale discusses how PBS Warn allows alerting professionals to review and evaluate emergency alerts issued across the country, helping identify strengths and weaknesses in warning messages. 

The episode also explores how WEA has evolved from the original 90-character limitation to 360-character alerts with expanded capabilities, improving opportunities for effective public warning.

This episode is sponsored by HQE Systems. Visit them at HQEsystems.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Hi, I'm Jeanette Sutton.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

And I'm Eddie Bertelin.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

And we welcome you to another episode of the Alerting Authority. And as always, we encourage you to subscribe, follow, listen, and most importantly, participate in these podcasts. We want your questions, concerns, ideas, problems, pains, points, and your success stories so we as alerting authorities can better do our jobs and make our community safer.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

And we want to thank all of our sub uh not only subscribers, people who are liking, clicking, you know, the subscribe button, following, and also our sponsors. Today's podcast is brought to you by HQE Systems. HQE is a FEMA-approved alert origination full service provider of life safety and electronic security solutions. They bring outdoor warning sirens, indoor notifications, mass alerting software, security cameras, and any other tools that you might need into one unified system. Their specialty is customization. And instead of forcing every organization into the same setup, HQE Systems designs the software interface around your specific needs, giving your team the best chance to perform when an emergency happens. As a disabled veteran-owned company, HQE Systems delivers dependable, accessible solutions built around your needs and the way that you operate. So thank you to that sponsor.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

And we appreciate HQE's sponsorship and their incredible work in the emergency management community. So today we are doing something a little bit different. Every week it feels a little bit different, but this one's gonna be a little bit different because you're really gonna want to turn on the YouTube video to watch this one because we're gonna be talking about what messages look like and not just um what you think they look like. We're talking about how what you see may not be what they see. What you as an emergency manager see when you put stuff together on your screen may not come out that way on the phone of one of the people within your community. Um, because today we're gonna look at PBS Warn and we're gonna discuss what shows up on different ver versions of cell phones, you know, the Apple phones and the Android phones. And you may not know this, but they're different. And and that difference can be seen when you look at PBS Warn. And some of the differences are also things that you just need to know about because there are some features that have been rolling out without a lot of fanfare. And they have resulted in some questions that we've been fielding and that our guest has been fielding in his um social media communications. Um and so let me introduce you to you today, our guest, and this is Rob Dale. Rob is a meteorologist and emergency manager. After spending over a decade as a TV meteorologist with an emphasis on severe weather coverage, he made the transition to emergency management in 2009. He spent two years in hospital emergency management, and he currently works for Ingham County, Michigan Emergency Management as a deputy emergency manager. He also runs a weather alerting system for businesses and public safety agencies called First to Warn, which is used throughout the nation for site-specific weather warnings. And he started the International Association of Emergency Managers Weather Caucus and is a certified emergency manager. He has a degree from Jacksonville State University, both a bachelor's in emergency management and a master's in emergency and disaster management from American Military University. And he serves as an adjunct professor for the University of Maryland Global Campus. And he teaches all over the United States because I've seen him doing classes for other organizations and sharing his wisdom in person and online. Because we frequently get to see him share some tidbits with people by giving advice and bringing the research to what the practice is, which really warms my heart because y'all know that this is something that I do as well. So it's nice to see a practitioner using their practical knowledge in addition to the research and sharing with us. Um, so we're really happy to have Rob with us today. And Rob, welcome to our podcast.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Thanks. Yeah, it's good to be here. It's good to apply the things that you and other researchers have done and put it, you know, that's the goal I think you have as a researcher is making sure it can change things. And my goal as a as a practitioner is to use your guidance and the guidance of others doing work in this so that when we do message the community that it's effective. That's our goal. In a disaster, the emergency managers are our most important, our most uh the tool we can use to save the most lives is an alert. You know, we aren't out there fighting the fire, arresting the bad guy. We can tell people about the fire or the bad guy, though. And that's that's I think a critical role.

unknown 5:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Well, I gotta say too, for those that are watching or if you see this is the Rob Dale. So if you have your daily dose of Dale on LinkedIn, or if you're looking at Rob's review, and those aren't actual sites, but those are things that he does as people are posting alerts. This is him. And he he's a real person. And uh honestly, it's been a great relationship. And and I hope you guys enjoy the episode and hear a little bit of really about that knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yeah. So, Rob, can you start by telling us a little bit more about yourself? In particular, your interest in alerts and warnings. Like, how did you get here?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah, so I grew up in a firefighting police family. My grandpa took me every Saturday to his fire station as a child, and and uh my dad, firefighter, and uncle was a fire chief and a police officer. So public safety's always kind of been in my background. Uh, meteorology is what I love, and I always thought I'd maybe be a volunteer firefighter someday, but it ends up after working in meteorology. I worked a lot with the emergency managers after a storm. So we, you know, we'd have a tornado come through. I'd go out the next day, not just to have a video story for the news, but just to find out what happened. You know, I was on the air putting out a tornado warning, so I want to know how that reacted. So was able to spend a time, a lot of time working with them, uh, going through it. And so I went back to school on my own uh while I was still on TV, thinking maybe someday this is something I'll switch to. And eventually that day came. So so really, uh and the reason I was on TV was at the time and and somewhat still today, that was the easiest way to communicate threats with the public. You know, we didn't have cell systems doing things like that. We didn't have the ability to to push information out other than sirens and weather radio. And then those are great tools. But but as these things came along, uh a system called uh has collect, I think it was, was one of FEMA's first systems, but but they were finding ways to push information out to the public. So as I jumped into emergency management, I saw a lot of your research back from your days at uh University in Kentucky and elsewhere and Dr. Milletti's and thought, you know what? I want to communicate life safety and information with the public. I have information whether it's the tornado coming through or whether now an emergency management, whether the hazmat truck, like I have this information. What can I do to share it more effectively with the public? So really dug in on learning what was out there, learning what we know, what tools we have. You know, social media, I wasn't a big social media person at all until I realized, hey, that's where the people are and that's where we have to be. So kind of put that passion into concentrating on the public alert and warning side and trying to learn as much as I can to make not only my messages effective, but help others in this community because emergency managers may not know this, but but we're different. Uh you go to a different community and you're going to find a different background, a different expertise, and we all have a different area where we concentrate it in, but we all need alert and warning, and that's kind of what uh pushed me into helping train others in that aspect.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

That's great. And if you started your emergency management career in 2009, you've actually watched this transition from Sirens and Reverse 911 being the sophisticated technologies because you watch social media come online and people choose very tentatively to adopt it, and then um moving a few years later to when Wii A was first launched.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Yeah, so WIA, then I remember those old days when all you could do was 90 characters, and you know that that was tough. You know, back originally we had no way to test to WIA. We had zero opportunity to send a test message that could go out on our phones, and that that's not until recent. So we started with 90, and again, 90 is better than zero. Uh, but through the research we saw, thankfully we were able to convince uh FEMA and the FCC and the providers that 360 was more useful. Um, so that added some opportunities, and then adding the URL so we could provide some links and and you know, some aspects we'll talk about today about adding graphics and what the future looks like in that. So a dramatic change. And we still have the old tools, we still have weather radio, we still have sirens, we still have EAS because layers save lives. No one of the there's not one system that's 100% effective 100% of the time. So so we're gonna talk about some things today that might annoy people because they're gonna come across twice. And and my thinking is I'd rather have it twice than zero. I you know, I that's uh if the those are the options we have because no technology is ever perfect. So so just seeing again, not only the enhancement of what we have, but the additional opportunities. People can sign up for so many more systems today. You know, you can download apps that will alert you that'll tack on too. So hopefully the goal of me is at least to say you had the information. Now, maybe you didn't act on it or maybe you didn't understand it, but but my goal is at least you had it. And then if you don't understand it, then reach out and say, hey, I you know, I got this warning, but I didn't know what you meant by this word. Let us help you. Uh we're never gonna have something effective if we can't learn from from what the community is. And and you and your peers have done a great job in helping us learn how does the community react when they see shelter in place versus stay in your house. So good information.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Good, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

Yeah, and one of the platforms that we use a lot and and that we can identify different, especially wireless emergency alerts and data that's being sent is through PBS Warn. And I I think we're gonna have a couple slides and we're gonna talk about it today. But can you kind of talk about what it is and what it's actually useful for?

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Yeah, so PBS is one of the main characters of alerts, uh emergency alert system messaging. And and so they put up a system that basically monitored the wireless emergency alert feed. Um so every or just about every Wii A that's issued in the country shows up there. Uh it'll show up in live, you can go back in archives, but that really exposed me to the variety of differences in in the way alerts are written. And and Dr. Sutton's her research has has looked in the past at effective and non-effective alerts. That takes months to years to get that information from when they study till it's actually published. And we can check every day. We can go right now and see Wii is that are that have been issued and and kind of say, hey, this one looks good, this one looks great, or this one needs a little bit of love. Um, so it's really helped us to get a pulse on the uh the uh where the abilities are across the country. Um I would say that clearly under half are very good messages, so it provides us some opportunities of, hey, identifying areas that might need some additional training, whether it's regions of the country or sizes. I've seen small emergency management agencies that write very great messages, and I've seen large ones that write some very ones that need some love. Um so but that helps us see what are people missing when they do that. We have, we know what what it takes to create a good message. So by monitoring PBS Warren, we can see, you know what, this one everyone does this well, but not everyone does this well. So this is maybe somewhere that we can we can do some training, whether it's free online stuff, whether it's some suggestions we passed along. I've sent emails to and called people that have written some ones that need some love, and some of those interactions have gone well, some some haven't. Uh, but nonetheless, it allows us that opportunity. You know, our goal is to make the profession better. We save lives in emergency management, and we should want to be better, uh, whatever it is we're doing. If we're doing something wrong, hopefully someone's able to tell us here's what you're doing wrong and here's how you make it better. That's our goal, or that's my goal at least.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

So, out of the things that you've seen and and you've seen a lot, what what are like some of the biggest pet peeves? When you look on PBS Warren and you're reviewing a bunch of stuff, and I want to throw it out there too. Like, I we appreciate everybody trying. Like, I mean, you're putting messages out, uh I that's that's good. Some are great, and as he said, you know, some are evidence of go back and try again, like get trained. But like for you, well, like what are the big things that you see and you're just like, oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

The biggest is when people write a 90 character and just copy and paste that into the 360. You know, if you ever try to write an alert message in 90 characters, you know you're gonna run it really, really quickly. Um, so that's that's pet peeve number one because then you're offered that 360. Again, we have to write a 90, part of the system, but it's the last thing that I do uh because again, so few people, it's under 5%. So, you know, if you've got an old flip phone or a very basic phone, you're the one that's getting that. But 95-ish percent of people are getting the full 360. So concentrate on the 360, write the 90 afterwards, do not copy and paste the 90 to 360. That's ineffective. Um, all caps. A lot of people still like all caps, they like screaming. And again, it's not saying it's horrible. If the message is good, it's all caps, I'll give you half a point extra. But again, just we use capitals to emphasize things that people need to concentrate on. You know, I think our eyes tend to see uh all caps and look at them. So that's good. The anonymous messages. People think that because I'm sending it from the Smith County 911 Center that that's gonna be labeled at the top. It's not. If it is not in that Wii A 360, it is not going to show up on someone's phone. So you know as you as you mentioned, it's not that people aren't aren't interested in doing it, they just don't realize whether they're used to using their mass notification system because a lot of those are automated. When I send a we use Rave in my county, I have a header that says Ingham County, so I don't have to type Ingham County when I send a RAVE message out. And I think that just the concept of I've never sent a WiiA before, and now all of a sudden big things are happening. I got just got a call says I need to, you know, I'm at the 911 Center, they tell me I need to evacuate this community and I've got to put something together real quick. You default to what your training level is. And I think a lot of us in emergency management uh do not have the level of training uh they think because you can go through your entire career and never send a Wii out. It's it's totally possible. I've been in this job 17 years, I've sent one uh wireless emergency alert in those 17 years. So I think sometimes it's the it won't happen here, but if it does happen here, I'll be able to figure out on the fly. And when the phones are ringing and the radios are blaring and you see that smoke plume coming, uh you may tend to not think of the the the five characteristics that make a good message up.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah, it's it's interesting. It sounds like maybe what you think people see uh on their phone doesn't always it doesn't look the same on the screen.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Well, yeah, because you know if you send a WIA, it lets us pick different types of disasters, whether it's an evacuation message or a fire warning, but that doesn't matter to your phone. That's an EAS header only. So that impacts the EAS message. It has no bearing on the phone. So if you're having a haunch that I send this as a civil emergency or a civil emergency message or a or a uh law enforcement warning, it doesn't matter. The f the week it does not show any of that stuff. So uh I have seen people take the time to pull that pole down and and and I got a message once that says, I didn't know whether to send this as an evacuation warning or a fire warning because it was a fire evacuation. It doesn't matter. The phone does not care. And the problem is, is in most emergency managers, that there's that's not really listed in much of our training. When you go through the required training through the IPAS system and the through the uh that you uh uh the IS classes you have to take it doesn't really tell you that. It doesn't show you that information. It doesn't remind you that that you're, you know, if you don't put your Smith County 911, it doesn't show up. So uh some of the training we do does a good job at the nuts and bolts, but then it doesn't really get into here are the things you need to pay attention to, which your training uh through the war room and others have shown us that. But but by default, if you haven't found that out or if you haven't sent the WIA out, it's when you get that WIA that says, oh wait, I didn't put my I didn't put my organization's name in there, or I forgot to add the URL, or I put it in the wrong section, as we'll talk about later. So so that's that's the unfortunate downside is that the sometimes the required training that we have even to be on the system is just enough to get us on the system. It's not enough to make us effective messaging.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

And I'm gonna ask Eddie to answer a question because we just talked about this today. We're holding uh boot camp this week, and one of the questions came up about handling codes and parameters. And those are technical terms that emergency managers who are using WIA should know. But they are technical terms. And Eddie, could you explain it? Because it's exactly what Rob was just talking about, but maybe not um uh it uh give it a a more concrete explanation of the differences between those things and who sees them.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

You bet. So as as Rob talked about, there are uh event codes that you get to choose from, right? If you were filling out an alert and you're about to send it, and again, I very few people, and it's really agencies for like a volcano incident, right? I mean, uh there there are many you can choose from, and it's really a long list for an event code, right, that you're gonna put into this alert. But just as Rob said, when it when we talk about phones and we talk about the wireless emergency alert, there are really only a couple. And so what you will see is iPause has put out a recommendation, uh, like a little box that says, hey, for all these event codes, we recommend you choose this Wii A parameter. Then it would be public safety, imminent threat as your main two choices. And there is a child abduction emergency one that is specifically for you know the Amber alert. But for 99.9% of all the times you're gonna use a wireless emergency alert, you get to choose between public safety and imminent threat. All the other stuff, it may appear on some notes, it may appear on an IPAUS feed, but to your community who's receiving it on their phone, they are going to see public safety or imminent threat. And that's ultimately your choice. And I it's just one of those things we even talk about MEP as a newer EAS event code or type that you can choose, which is a missing endangered person. I cannot tell you the times we've had conversations, people are like, Well, for my phone, it's an MEP alert, and I'm like, There's no such thing. There isn't. I hope there will be in the future. You can do MEP until you're blue in the face. That is an event code, but for your phone, it's still going to display either public safety or imminent threat. So I I just think that I appreciate Rob you bringing that up because if you are taking time to determine, oh man, is it, you know, fire warning, is it all these things, just get the message out. Right? If you're doing an EAS type alert at the same time, yeah, you may need to be a little more specific. But if you're solely doing a wireless emergency alert, get it out there.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

And I don't think everyone knows the difference between public safety and imminent threat either, because that was kind of rolled out in a slow way, because it also may depend on your phone. An imminent threat should blast through every setting you have. As long as your phone is on, you should be hearing a screeching noise. That's the way imminent threat should work. And then the public safety kind of honors some of those settings where it might vibrate a mighty night noise, and it calls, you know, and if you have an Android phone, you know there's 87 different versions of Android, so there's 88 different ways that it'll alert. But that's the goal. With an imminent threat, uh imminent threat should blast. Public safety should be a little gentler, like it's supposed to honor your silent mode and in s in nighttime mode where it just quietly shows up. But I but again, that's that I don't know if that's really spelled out in any of the formal FEMA training, that those are the two differences. That if it's if you're gonna die right now, then I want it to be imminent threat. Don't worry about anything else. If it's something that inconveniences you, you know, a major road closure, you know, power outage, then yeah, you know, the goal at the end of the day is we don't want to be a part of over-alerting people. That's really the when you get a wireless emergency alert on my phone, I did not sign up for that. You know, I'm the general public. I don't care about the, you know, I don't want the government intruding. So when I'm intruding of who we are, I want this to be something so important that I had to open up your phone and send you a message and and either save your life with with the imminent threat or at least advise you of some significant troubles with with public safety.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

And I think that's one of the challenges is the federal government has not come out and said this type of alert needs to be done in public safety. This one is imminent threat. They leave it up to The alerting authority. And what happens is you get people, municipalities, counties right next to each other that may say, Hey, we're doing a missing person. I'm going to do public safety. Well, another county does missing person and they choose imminent threat. And it's up to them. Now I think there's a right way to do it. And those would both be in public safety, but the county can still make that decision. And I think that's one of the big pieces that's missing is that definitive direction is what you need to do. Um because uh Rob, just as you said, if there are some settings that public safety is supposed to honor so that it's not blaring all the time, people can just bypass that by selecting imminent threat on everything, which I think is is wrong.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Yeah, there's so many little details about the ways that these messages show up are sent. Um really complicated and the software doesn't make it easy. The software that you're using at your desk doesn't make it easy. There's um some limitations in the guidance that's received from the FEMA office, the iPod's office. Um and then we've got PBS Warren that reveals it all to us. Uh we were looking at some messages earlier today during boot camp. And um honestly, I'm I'm still surprised when I when I see two words in a message that's going out as an imminent threat message. Like it just says evacuation warning. And I think, where's the rest of it? Where's the rest of it? And that is one of the problems. And I think this is a good time for me to share my screen because when we do look at PBS Warn, sometimes we'll see something like what you're seeing here. Um, where I'll sh for those who are just listening, um, these are two examples of messages where the 90 characters and the 360 characters are identical, which Rob already identified as his number one pet peeve. But below it, you see this long paragraph of text that's very explanatory, gives a lot of details, and it's in a field called instructions. And I'm gonna ask Rob to talk a little bit about what these what is this field and who sees it.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Yeah, so the instructions field goes to Apple's only. Apple phones will show us uh it'll show the Wii, it'll show the wildfires near the campground, there's no order, and then it'll pop up a little button that says for more info or something along those lines, and then it shows you up to 600 characters of additional information. So if you're on iPhone or if you're on iPhone, you'll get it, should get it. If you're on Android, you will not get this information. Um, so again, that's great information in there. I would condensed a little bit of that and put it up in the in the Wii itself because we want everyone to have that information. Uh, maybe the full Wii could have had a link to your Facebook page or website or or Twitter account to have that information. But then so it's great that they put that in an instructions. I just wish that some more of it would have been in the Wii. Uh allow it a link because if you again, if you don't have an iPhone or if you're not happening, you can go to PBS Warrant. So I guess if your first response is, well, I'm probably the only one of the group that has it actually is his homepage by default. So if that's not you, then you missed out on this. I mean, again, I I would think that's uh the information that needs to be communicated, but the Wii doesn't say mm mm uh 98% of that.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah. And for those who are are listening in, um for one of the messages, um uh it says a wildfire is near a campground and there is no immediate evacuation order. But then the instructions, they actually tell people what they should do, what you need to do now. Prepare an emergency kit with essentials such as medications, clothing, important documents, pet supplies, know your evacuation routes and have full tank of gas or charged EV battery. Stay informed with local alerts, official social media, and news updates. You can protect your home. So it gives all this additional really useful information. Some of that could have been included in 360 characters. Um, you know, if there's no immediate evacuation order, you it is an opportunity right now to get prepared, to get your evacuation kit pulled together, to make sure that you've found your pets that might be hiding because they're scared, you've got their equip their travel carrier ready to go, um, you've communicated with people about where you might evacuate to and meet up. There's so much information that could have been included in that message. There is a pop a percentage of the population that would never see that information. And that is a question of equity. Should some people get more information than others?

SPEAKER_03 27:00

So when it comes to CAP messaging, there's a common alerting protocol, and that has actually been internationally adopted as a way to essentially format these messages and send them out. So it think of it as a universal language, and it's not just between the states, it really is an international language so that we can put it together so there's software systems and other things that will take this information and then be able to transmit it and send it out to others. It it's really a wonderful thing so that instead of having 20 different ways to push that information, there is just one standard. Now, within CAP, there's a lot of information that is put in. I mean, we have coordinates, I mean, there's uh a lot. Now, what actually gets taken and displayed on your phone is a very small percentage of the information that exists and is capable of existing within CAP messaging. And so CAP can provide a lot of information, but our phones only display a certain amount. And that's why sometimes when you go to PBS Warren or there are other, um, there's other software out there that takes this iPause feed that's free that that companies or organizations can actually sign up for and get, they have a lot more information. And it's like, well, where did that all information come from? Well, it comes from the iPause open feed that's all done in CAP messaging.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

And this is something that Apple does on their own. It's not like you know, FEMA or FCC is dropping the ball. They actually take it and then supply it later on. That's why when you get a WIA, it might take five to 15 seconds for that more button to show up. Uh on the other hand, it's something we as emergency managers, we can't test this. We can't when we send a test system uh test message out, or our RWTs we call it, we that does not fe take the instructions. So, so we don't have the ability on the fly to to to even see how it works until the big one hits. So, and I do give them half credit on the right. They did use capital letters. So they have they have done some training. They just uh should have snuck some of that back up into the top and and made that way a five-star.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

All right, let's look at the next message. Um, so so this is a little bit different because the first messages I showed you were written by alerting two alerting authorities, and they included the instructions field. But this is a screenshot from PBS Warren that is from the National Weather Service for a severe one thunderstorm warning. And it has a huge box of text in the middle of the left-hand side of the screen, which is called description. And then underneath it, it says instructions. So uh what is the description field?

SPEAKER_00 30:00

So a description field is used for the emergency alert system. So uh it's basically we and we've seen this happen, this this is automated by the weather service, so it adds some additional information for EAS. It really doesn't go out to anyone other than possibly the EAS provider as they as they convert it. If they you see the scroll across the bottom of the screen, it will not show up on a wireless emergency alert. Uh, some of the wireless emergency alert providers, the the systems that allow you to write it, they have a description field. Don't do anything with it. That's if it's it's not going to go to your phone. So so I have seen uh emergency managers 911 operators put some great information in the description. There's also a URL field uh for for a clickable link. That doesn't go anywhere. There's some either phone contact and email fields, that doesn't go anywhere. So so if it's not, and again, uh reminding you, put it in the WIA. If it's the most important information, put it in the WIA. If it's secondary important, you put it in the instructions. On the other hand, one of the major providers lets you put a thousand characters in that instructions. It only takes 600. Um, so I don't know what happens if you put 601, whether it it just cuts it off or whether it doesn't send it out. We don't know uh because we can't test. So that's knowing the knobology of your system. Know what your system can do. Do not concentrate it, because you see the web link here, that's automated, but I have seen EMs put in a web link for more information. It just doesn't go anywhere. It goes into the EAS box, if anything, and and sits on a computer log somewhere. So, so, so, so, so ignore those. Uh, worry about the WIA. Next, worry about the instructions if you can, and then leave everything else to go because it's all EAS related, if anything.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

I think it's super, super helpful information. Um, so this is the moving from that screen that was on PBS Warren to show how it shows up in different cell phones. Uh, so on the left bottom corner, you see how a message would show up as just a 360-character message, which represents what would show up on an Android device or an Apple device before you click More. Right, Rob?

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

And on the right hand side is what it looks like when you receive the 360-character message with the additional details posted immediately below it on an Apple device.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

So the system, as as Eddie noted, it'll the Apple reads the cap codes, and when they find that additional those instructions, again, it's only the instructions, it's nothing else. When it finds instructions, it basically adds another website, adds a link to their website. So it may take again five to fifteen, maybe thirty seconds at the most for that to pop up. But as long as you have good sell signal, it then provides the web link with that additional details information in it.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Yeah. And Apple is doing some new things. Um one of the things that they rolled out um in late 25, I believe, was something called enhanced safety alerts. And this is on iOS 26.2 or later, so the most recent phones. Um, and in this case, you can um where on on your phone you get to choose whether or not you want your government alerts turned on or off, your Amber alerts turned on or off. Your they have imminent uh emergency alerts, which would be our imminent threat alerts, public safety alerts, and test alerts. Those are the four regular categories for government alerts. And then there's this new category that they've created called enhanced alerts. We know that they sound a little bit different from government alerts. They they look a little bit different. Um, but there's two categories for those, and it's earthquake alerts and imminent threat alerts. And I'm gonna I'll go to the next screen, and Rob, you could tell us what what it is that we're seeing.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

Can we pause for a quick second though? Oh yeah, go ahead, Eddie. And go back to that screen. Uh the one right before. Folks, if you are not signed up for alerts, if you have signed out or signed, like opted out for whatever reason, go back in and and please sign up. Okay. You hear a lot of bad stuff out there about, hey, well, this is how you opt out. I'll be the first one to admit, folks, we are still learning the best way to get information to you. But when you opt out, you put yourself out of the information loop. So I love these screens because if your phones don't look like this, I know this is the Apple one. Click yes on these things. Okay. Um, you you need to get it for those times when you do get a bad alert. I apologize. I promise people are trying to get better. Um, but please don't opt out. And that's my little public service message. Okay, we can go to the next one, but I had to say it.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Well, and no, my public service message about this screen is we didn't know that it happened. It just uh Zach Sanford uh posted if he founded a setting inside his phone that did that and he kind of asked, What's going on? And no one, no one really knew. Like we just again, great that they did it. I'm not I'm not upset that they did it, but sometimes things just show up in a phone and then we find out through trial and error what's actually in it.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Yeah, and sometimes people's cell phones go off and they wonder why did it make that new sound and why does it say critical? What is that?

SPEAKER_00 35:22

So that's the new sound. So instead of just the the wireless emergency alert, uh this one came maybe 45 seconds at most a minute, as I recall afterwards. Uh, this was my area. But then so we got that second, that critical, uh imminent threat alert. So it had the full text of the Wii U 360, it had the additional information that the the uh out of the instructions field, but then it also showed the polygon. It showed them the where the threat was. In this case, it was a severe thunderstorm warning. But the thinking is that if uh if I drew an evacuation zone, it would show that it showed the blue dot where I was at the time. Uh it's that's exactly where I was on the southeast side of Lansing. So so it kind of gives you some situational awareness. One of the things that we know is in a Wii A 360, even it's hard to use descriptive to say where you are. We see so many messages that say you're in the X number block. Don't like that because unless it's my house, I really don't know what block I'm in ever. Um so using major intersections is helpful. Using you know, landmarks were near the you know, the baseball stadium or the the mall. But this by adding the the actual map shows here's where the threat is, here's where I am. If that, for example, was a uh you know, chemically gonna have to evacuate, I could tell that if I just went east or south, I'd be in good shape. I did not want to go north or west uh because I'm getting into it. So again, love the fact that they're adding this. Didn't know they were gonna do it. Uh don't know what it looks like in all the times. If I don't do a polygon, I don't know what it looks like, but nonetheless, uh a step forward uh for Apple and maybe for and for Androids too. They may have something we'll shock talk about later. We're gonna give them some love. Uh, but definitely a great, a great tool that uh we don't know exactly how it always works. But but uh then the other side is then that's a second alert. So I've already got my tornado Wii A. Now a minute later I get another Wii A which says the same thing but just adds the map. Um so so it's layers save lives, and that's what I'll keep saying. You can turn those off. Back in the old days, you had to dial like a 14-digit phone weird code to turn them off. I wish we had that again, so it made it harder. Uh, but nonetheless, you can turn these off. Please don't. Uh the goal is to save lives.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Rob, when you got that, did you try opening up the map or zooming in so that you could see like the neighborhood level?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

I don't recall that that was an option. I think that was just a still shot uh uh uh using using that image.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Yeah. I mean it really is quite something. It looks so different from a regular Wii A because the whole screen is taken up by the two text boxes plus the map. Um and with it sounding different, if if people in your community are familiar with the Wii A sound and then they get this second message, they're they are likely to wonder what is happening and why does it look so different. So recognizing that this is a new feature within Apple that people have turned on, they've enabled these new alerts, um it it you'll be able to answer some of their questions when they start to feel like they're getting a lot of information that's r repetitive. Um and you'll just knowing these features as they're rolling out without a lot of additional information is gonna be uh really important. So I think the next one, this is the one that we think might be a Google map.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Yeah, so that resembles a Google map with the same concept. Now, whether it came across the phone or or they they pulled up the map, I don't know. That was something I'd simply uh found on social media. Um so it's possible they are they are attempting the same. And that's you know, we we can't get specific on this, but every time we do have some sort of automated, you know, most of our Wii as been from the weather service. The next day on my uh EM Facebook page, I'll put out, hey, here's what we know, here's which here's why the Wii A sounded, because they also got a text message from my mass notification system. They also probably got something from their their, you know, if they have a weather app, they probably got that too. So I explain to people that you know, here's why you get so many of these, here's the advantage of it. So, so again, we we don't always know why it looks like or what it looks like on their phone. I have people that swear to me that they never got a Wii A, and then they show me a snapshot and it's the Wii A. So the public doesn't always understand what they're getting, so just explain to them that we use layers. Layers save lives. And again, it looks like Google may so if anyone knows and they want to comment and chat and tell us that the confirm that's what a what a Google Wii looks like, I'd be happy to add it to our library. Uh, but I think that's the concept of what uh Google's moving towards.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

And for those who are listening, this one, the heading says advisory, but it's a tornado warning. So it's it's using some some interesting language where Apple used critical alert as the heading for their message. This one says it's an advisory and it's an emergency alert for a tornado warning. So just uh different language, different screen presentation, things that are because the National Weather Service lingo advisory is the lowest end.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

The advisory is a nuisance of weather event that has no life threat. And yet here we're saying that this is a tornado. So it's not a low end, it's not just a nuisance. This is the real thing. So so again, an advisory emergency alert might be confusing to the to the community.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Yeah, so new things rolling out. So I think I have uh oh yeah, the last thing I wanted to share with you, this is where where we're gonna give some love to Android. Because the earthquake early warnings. And I know Rob, you're not as familiar with these being from Michigan, but Eddie, you certainly got these messages when you were living in California.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

That's right. And uh I gotta say, a fun little thing is we had earthquakes all the time. There were earthquakes, and you got notified, you know, you became very accustomed to it. People who were visiting, or when we had the earthquakes on the East Coast not too long ago, and when I saw the way that people were freaking out about it, and they're like, well, it was like a 4.7, oh my goodness. I'm like, we didn't even stop for a 4.0 or a 6.0. Come on. Like, really? But at the same time, i when I came out to the Midwest where I live now, I literally was like, Oh, it's windy, like tornado, and I'm the one going, what's happening? And then people were kind of just still out on the lake and everything else. Um but I don't know, Jeanette. I know hopefully you're gonna talk about the advancements here with this because it's been amazing the technology improvements and just the way that you're gonna get notified because forever, um, I mean, I I feel like I'm old too. You didn't do anything until you actually felt the shaking, right? And that's when you dropped cover hold or you went into a doorway, all those little things, but it wasn't until after the shaking had started. And this is a whole new process.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yeah, so the screen right now is sharing a shake alert powered wireless emergency alert. And shake alert is run by U.S. Geological Survey, and it is sensors that have been installed up and down the coast, uh the West Coast, that are able to identify the initial ground shaking, um, measure it, and determine the direction of the movement of the wave and identify who should be receiving the earthquake early warning within moments of detecting that initial movement. Um and some people can receive a WIA for an earthquake early warning 30 seconds before they feel shaking, 40 seconds before they feel shaking. It is just some of the most amazing technology that's been developed by USGS. And the message here that's issued through WIA it says for both the 360 and 90, very simple, earthquake detected, drop, cover, hold on, protect yourself, USGS shake alert. Um, just amazing work by the people within USGS and including the social scientists who have been working on designing effective messages for this, keeping it really, really short. And then just the amount of public education to help people to understand how to protect themselves, drop, cover, and hold on are the key actions that people should take. We don't tell people to get in the doorway anymore. We tell them to drop cover and get underneath something and hold on to protect yourself. Um, but this is also similar to the the cap feed you were talking about. This as it's going out through iPause can be picked up by other apps. And one of the apps That's picked this up is Android. And so Android has earthquake alerts. On the west coast of the US, they have a bi-level earthquake alert. The one is for be aware alert, which is for weak or light shaking. And the second one is a take action alert for shaking that is much stronger and could be damaging. And so this is where the technology within the Android phone mixed with the shake alert system becomes just really amazing because it determines where you are relative to the shaking and to can determine how what um how much shaking you will personally feel. And so, in one, when you're expecting light shaking, it tells you how far away you are from the epicenter. Um and it doesn't give you instructions on what to do on the face of your screen. On the take action alert, your whole screen lights up and it says what the the estimated magnitude, the distance from the epicenter, and it provides icons and instructions that says drop, cover, and hold on. And when you sweep the screen, it will take you to additional information on protective actions. Um just a really amazing technology that they rolled out. And they rolled it out internationally too. Um but there's not uh earthquake early warning, like shake alert system set up all over the world. Instead, Android uses the accelerometer inside of your phone to detect the initial shaking, and then it triangulates with all the other phones that are also experiencing the shaking and can very quickly send out a message to people within those areas. So um the really significant shaking that was that occurred recently in South America with so many losses, um, people did they did report receiving the messages on their Android devices before they started to feel shaking. Um so they have a lot of uh records of that. Um so again, this is another rollout thing that there was a lot of communication about it, I believe, on the West Coast, maybe not so much here where we live in Michigan and New York and Arkansas. Um but then most recently with the enhanced alerts that Apple is rolling out, because you can select earthquake, they have also added the bi-level earthquake alerts to their features. And similar to the ones that Android has created, the Apple alerts have the awareness alert for an earthquake that's detected nearby, and the action alert, which if it's um a critical alert where you should expect there's gonna be strong shaking. So similar to what um Android has done, Apple now has this bile earthquake alerts ingesting that cap feed. Um and the Apple alert um for the uh the awareness message, it tells you how far you are away from the epicenter of the earthquake and the magnitude. But for the action message, um actually we don't have an action message on this screen. So we don't know what that one looks like yet. Um this is the the two pictures you see on the screen are the original shake alert message that went out, and then below it is the Apple message that went out. They're not labeled very differently, um, but they certainly have different information.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

And in this case, you know, we I complain about when the 19360 match. In this case, they both match, but I have seen times people posted pictures of where the 360 wheel gets corrupted. The you know, the letters are out of place. In this one, we need to be fast, so we need to be quick. You know, every every little character counts, especially when you're sending a mass notification system through multiple towers, as you showed in the example. So so it's okay that they do that. And that's great that Apple and Google have both decided that earthquakes are worthy enough to add a little information to.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Yeah, yeah. Just amazing things that are rolling out in our screens. So um, those were the last of the slides that I had to share. Um, but you know, I think this conversation about what we see on our screens versus what the public sees, and then also recognizing that there's new things that are coming out that we're just we're learning about it with the public. I it is a new world every day. Who knows what's coming next?

SPEAKER_00 48:42

And that it emphasizes that you, as a message sender, should be using the RWT and send a phone, send a message to yourself. You saw that slider that said test alerts. I tell my community, don't turn that on unless you want me to bug you, because I do send real-world test alerts that my office is on. I've got a couple of people that work around me in the community that have it on, but but I want five or ten, the ham radio people, they love it. Your CERP people, they will love it too. So, but I'll send a message out and say, hey, if if you got, you know, I'll reach out individually, say, Did you get this? Where were you? What did it look like? Send me a screenshot because and it's great that we can send to the test server all day. Obviously, you should be doing that absolutely, but send some real world RWTs out. They will only bother people that went to the trouble to go to all that screen and turn on test alerts, which most people do not. My family does absolutely not have any of that turned on because they're they're normal people. Um, so but make sure you're doing that so you know what it looks like, so you know what a URL will do, because sometimes people take the time to put the HTTPS colon slash slash. You don't need all that. You don't know that just took off characters that you don't need. So go through and send a URL without all that stuff, and I guarantee you you'll be able to click it with you without adding that. So so again, just know the system as best you can because in the heart of an emergency, you're gonna go to the lowest level of training you remember. And if you've not done this, if you've not tried this, you know, our 911 Center, I'll every every once in a while we'll come and throw them a pretend emergency. Write me a wea right now. Let's see how long it takes you to do that. You know, I don't make them stop life-saving stuff, but if it's quiet, I'll make them do that and just and just get that information out and make sure that we're doing it. Because in the heart of the disaster, you may only send one into your career. It could save lives if done effectively, and that's that's an important project.

SPEAKER_03 50:26

I love it. I would say, um, Rob, we need to have you back on because while this is fun and and I think it's super interesting. We may have more updates that are coming, especially if we get some Google information. Um, but I also I would love to see some of your top alerts. The ones that that you've been able to comment on and and use it as a building opportunity. Um, because just as Jeanette and I will share alerts with each other, I know there there's a lot that you send her or that you post and um to talk through some of them. Um because again, getting that practitioner discussion going, I think, is really important. Um and yeah, just building from it. So as long as you're okay with coming back.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

I suppose. And you know, a lot of it is, you know, I see messages go out that I don't think should be weird. We know that Texas has a large amount of Wii uh use uh how I word this, use used in a way that I would not use it as in my community. So, so so the the issue is then if I'm in Texas and I get this alert that in the middle of the night for something that happened, you know, I'm in El Paso and it's in Amarillo, I'm turning off my alerts, and then when I go back home, does everyone remember to turn them back on? Because it only takes one 3 a.m. alert to get people to turn off their system, and then they would never think to turn it back on. So so when you say, well, it doesn't affect you, well, yeah, it does affect me. My goal is to make sure that wherever I'm at, there's nothing else in the world in the United States that lets you get emergency alerts wherever you are, no matter what. You know, I don't have to look up what county am I driving through? Do I need to sign up for Code Red or Everbridge or Rave or HQE? I don't, no one's gonna do that. I don't do that. And so, so, so WIA is a very important critical process. I want to make sure it's being used. You know, maybe sometimes I saw something that didn't look that bad, and you think, you know what, Rob, it really was that, did need that. And and I'll have those conversations all day long. But most of what we see, we've seen it done for small traffic crashes on the corner. Uh, there's a city near me, uh, in a state near me that love to do traffic crashes and they expand, they do a 15-mile polygon. So every major interstate gets this note that these two streets that I, you know, no one knows are getting it. And I don't like people driving through at 70 miles per hour having to look up. Well, I just got this emergency. It must be bad because it says that it's emergency, but it's no, it's just an intersection on a street in in downtown Fort Wayne. Uh no, I said the word started the name. That's all right. They're not going to watch. But that's my concern is I don't want people turning this system off. I want it to be used. You know, people will accept a couple, maybe, I think. That's up for for Dr. Sutton and the rest of us to tell us, but but we do know we we see it on social media. Every time something, something wide scale goes out, we see how do I turn off those alerts? How do I turn it off? And I'm my fear is once they turn them off, they're not going to ever turn it back on.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 53:18

Well, we we do have more research that we're working on about the over-alerting. And so you you have uh identified one of our next research topics. We will bring that to you as soon as we have more results. Um, but in the meantime, Rob, thank you for joining us today and sharing with us some of the um the basic insights that everyone should know about what that PBS warring screen looks like and how information shows up on phones. And also some of the sophisticated insights that you bring because you've been doing this for a long time. And you can see the good and the bad and the messages that need a little more love and the messages that that are spot on. Um, and we we learn from each other and we can become better by by learning from each other in this in this way. So thanks for joining us today, Rob.

SPEAKER_00 54:08

I'm glad I could. Again, you the Warner training is phenomenal. I've taken it myself. After all this experience, I went through their training. So please do that. The training I do is more of just I don't get into as much as the why, which I love personally, but if you just need to know the what, I'd be happy to talk to anyone and go through just the what stuff. Because again, the goal is to make things better. If we make the emergency management community uh is here to stay, so let's make it as good as we can, and and I'll be happy to talk about that anytime with anyone. But but take the training, get some formal training, take the time to spend with the Warren Room or the boot camp and uh and and make yourself make your make your community better. That's really the goal at the end of the day, is to keep your keep your residents, keep your visitors, keep all of them as safe as we can.

SPEAKER_03 54:51

No, I love it. Thank you. And again, you know, I we talked in the beginning about Rob's social media presence and doing all this stuff. And if you're if you're ever labeled as one of the ones that he talks about, um, I want to kind of put it out there and be very truthful, not sarcastic, that if you do have a question, if you are the one listed in there, if you reach out to Rob, Jeanette, myself, and there are many others out there, and whether it's a direct message, email, and say, I need help. I have never seen anybody say, sorry, like you're out of luck. It's really a let's have a conversation. If it gets to the point where you're on social media and you're being pointed out, well, that's because a lot of people are impacted and we really want to get your attention. Um, but but please reach out. And I think that's the big piece is you're not.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

We talk at everything in emergency management, it's policies, it's training, it's you know, it's not that we're we don't like you. It's that that you represent us uh and something didn't go right. So whether you didn't get the training or whether your your your boss has said you I don't need to send you to this class, well, I'll write a letter and say you need to go to the Warren Room boot camp. I will be happy to do that for you because you know it's not I'm not naming names when I do that. I just simply want this is this is bad. Doesn't look good. It you uh youth may think it only impacts your community if they turn it off, but it impacts my community if my residents turn it off when they're in your community, which again, I I had someone come back from Texas about two weeks ago and he says, I know why people turned off alerts when they're in Texas. That's that's all he had to say. He didn't, but he he says, I know why they do. So he goes, he'd been there for a month. So there you go. That's the concern.

SPEAKER_03 56:29

Well, thank you for joining us, everybody. And again, this is the alerting authority. Um, we look forward to bringing Rob back in the future, and uh, we do know here that every second has a story. And thank you for being uh with us and giving us a chance to share yours.