When we first began to study public responses to Wireless Emergency Alerts in 2012, we immediately saw significant issues with alerts that were limited to 90-characters. Study participants indicated that these messages could not contain enough information to act upon, so instead of leading them to protect themselves, it led to them to search for more information ( see Bean et al. 2016 ). Information search to confirm the message is trustworthy and requires action is commonl

This post is a bit different from the rest; Here I share my personal reflections on the invitation to speak to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Communication and Technology on December 16, 2025. Jeannette Sutton, PhD, preparing to respond to a comment from a house committee member. THE LEAD UP Early in the week, I received an email from a staffer for the Subcommittee, asking if I would share my thoughts on some of the bills they would be discussin

Much of the time that I have written about language inconsistency and the use of jargon in messages, it has been focused on WILDFIRE.  Many previous posts to the Warning Gallery have pointed to the use of operational and technical language (Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 or Ready status, Set status, Go status) that has more meaning to responders and commanders than to the public.  In fact, we’ve published about the use of inconsistent language in the National Fire Protection A

CONTENT! Over-alerting is not just about frequency and relevancy. It's also about what you include in the message.  Over the past few weeks, I've been writing about the dimensions of over-alerting that  Michele M Wood   and I defined in our recently published paper Opting Out: Over Alerting in the Era of Wireless Emergency Alerts . The one final dimension is CONTENT.  Our study participants explained that messages that are incomplete, incomprehensible, and not actionable,

FALSE ALERTS So far, relevance has focused on alerts that require action 🏃‍♀️‍➡️ (they are urgent, severe, and certain), alerts that you can actually do something about 😴 (as in, not told to shelter inside when it's the middle of the night), and alerts that are geographically specific 🌎 (you're in the area of the threat and the threat is near you). Today, we'll be talking about that one historical event that is seared into the minds around the world. THE FALSE ALERT.  Fals

GEOGRAPHY In our research on over-alerting , we found scholars who wrote about the issues of mis-located alerts, polygons, and how geography affects public perceptions of message relevance.   In the paper by Sara McBride, Ann Bostrom, et al on earthquake early warnings , they pointed to mis-located alerts as a risk related to technology - that is, when technological issues result in alerts going to places where people don't feel shaking. They can be perceived as over-alert

RELEVANCY Earlier this week, in Episode 2, I wrote about the first part of over-alerting, where our research participants described the problem with alert frequency. In Episode 3, I'm going to write about RELEVANCE. This one has a lot of dimensions, and I won't cover them all right now. If you want to read the open access article, click here Sutton J. & Wood, M. (2025) Opting Out. Relevancy was defined broadly by our research participants as "things that affect them."

The first dimension of over-alerting: FREQUENCY In our recently published article on Over-Alerting , Michele Wood and I found three primary dimensions to describe over-alerting:   1. frequency 2. relevance 3. content Beginning with FREQUENCY, we found it was described in multiple ways.   1️⃣ To start, we need to consider how frequently a person's phone lights up, vibrates, or emits a noise to get your attention in general. We live in an "attention economy" and one study we

An Introduction. Just over a year ago, the RAND Corporation published their report assessing public reach of Wireless Emergency Alerts. What stood out to me was not who emergency managers ARE reaching but who they are NOT. In many cases, this can be attributed to OPTING OUT. (25-30% in Texas alone). How do we make sense of this?   My colleague,   Michele M Wood   and I received funding from the US Geological Survey to investigate why people opt out of emergency alerts (if yo

Chemical fires are frightening. They represent a sort of "dread risk" that raises concerns about not only short term impacts but...

Recently, my colleague Dr. Michele Wood and I published a paper that defines and identifies dimensions of over-alerting. While some of...

When people have been told to protect themselves by taking shelter; when the conditions are highly uncertain; when the threat holds a...

When a warning has ended, do you send a message or do you let silence speak for you? Do you let the public figure out that the coast is...

This is a long post that includes a LOT of WEAs (14 to be exact). Because I followed the December 5, 2024 tsunami event fairly closely,...

When we take a look at the most prevalent WEA messages, the #1 type, following those issued by the National Weather Service for...

On Friday morning, June 13, Hawaiians were startled by a statewide WEA. It indicated that it was a TEST - in fact it was some sort of...

Just after 6:00 PM on Sunday, June 8, the Los Angeles Police Department used the IPAWS system to issue a Wireless Emergency Alert to a...

If you’re going to write an EAS message, why not use that same content to write a WEA?  Recently, I saw a WEA that was issued for an...

One of the advantages of Wireless Emergency Alerts is their ability to alert people, without requiring them to opt in, and to do so in a...