Issuing alerts about warming centers should be easy to understand and accessible for all.

There are now more than 40 named alerts for missing and endangered persons across the United States. These messages are specific to individual states, and are commonly accompanied by state legislation to identify a vulnerable population that was not previously highlighted in missing persons messages. For instance, Arizona recently initiated the "Turquoise Alert" described this way: A Turquoise Alert program establishes a notification system that provides immediate informatio

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 commonly

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

Chemical fires are frightening. They represent a sort of "dread risk" that raises concerns about not only short term impacts but long-term consequences from exposure. Children, older adults, and persons with pre-existing conditions are especially at risk. Chemical fires contain noxious fumes and toxins that can affect skin, respiration, and other essential body functions. We can remember the way the public was (not) alerted to the dangers in the East Palestine Train Derai

Recently, my colleague Dr. Michele Wood and I published a paper that defines and identifies dimensions of over-alerting. While some of those dimension are probably recognizable, such as geographical over-reach and redundancy, we also found that incomplete messages that are not actionable comprise fit into this typology. And today's WEA fits it perfectly. In this case, there is no sender, no location, and no time. In fact, there isn't a real hazard described or even a prote

When people have been told to protect themselves by taking shelter; when the conditions are highly uncertain; when the threat holds a type of dread that permeates one's psyche, alerting authorities of all types - those who use IPAWS, opt-in systems, or otherwise - must close the communication loop. The communication loop begins when a warning is issued to prepare people and instruct them to take action to protect themselves. It is the beginning of a conversation where one pe

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 clear, the threat is over, the hazard has ended? Do you hope that they eventually come out of their shelters, resume their activities, return to normal without any notice from you? Or do you actively issue a message? If you issue a message, do you tell people what has happened and assure them that the threat has ended? Do you let them know,

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, I was curious to see how this one would play out. In this case, multiple states received a Tsunami Warning from NWS-Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (portions of CA and AK; and all of HI), and Tsunami Advisories were issued by counties for their coastlines. Hawaii issued 4 Wireless Emergency Alerts; four counties in California issued Tsunami

When we take a look at the most prevalent WEA messages, the #1 type, following those issued by the National Weather Service for meteorological events, is missing persons. This includes missing persons of all sorts - children, college students, and adults. And those messages seem to be increasing. But as they do, we really need to get a handle on how to best communicate them so that they are actionable. To do so, I thought it would be useful to take a look at three recent m

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 "proficiency demo cog testing" - but this test was sent to a live environment and every WEA-enabled phone in the state lit up. The June 13, 2025 TEST message issued statewide by Hawaii Emergency Management The June 13, 2025 TEST message issued statewide by Hawaii Emergency Management This seemed to be a replay of the December 2018 WEA issued e

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 small, geographically bound area, in downtown Los Angeles. The same message was sent for a 360-character WEA and a 90-character WEA, and included an abbreviation for the sender (LAPD), information about the event/hazard (protest activity), the location (abbreviated as DTLA, and more specifically the 101 Freeway at Alameda). This was followed

Live WEA tests are used to test the WEA system from end to end. This includes engaging the public who are receiving your messages and, in some cases, responding to them by clicking a link or reporting back in some other manner, For example, this past March, the New York State Police conducted a live WEA Test in order to ensure that their AMBER Alert system could handle the traffic associated with future events. Prior to issuing the alert, they worked with local media to en

There are presently more than 45 alert types for missing and endangered persons. They are frequently given names such as AMBER, Silver, Gold, and other colors that represent some aspect of the individual/s after whom the alert is named. For instance, the AMBER alert is named after Amber Hagerman, a 9 year-old girl who was abducted and killed in Texas; it is also an acronym for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. A Silver alert is the alert designation for a se

A colleague sent this message to me, calling attention to the words "hazardous materials" and asking what might be a more plain language approach to describing the dangers that could ensue from this particular wildfire. Given that it was burning near a marijuana farm, one might guess that the hazardous material was the marijuana itself and the danger from smoke inhalation was a contact high that could result in secondary impacts if a local resident was stopped while driving.

We've seen a lot of missing person alerts come through WEA these past few weeks. Many of them stand out for what they lack, but this message stood out for the language that was used to capture the attention of the message receiver. Child's Life in Danger! The use of this language prompted a lot of conversations between myself and my research team, with one person saying "this makes me want to click to find out more" and that really stuck with me because it changes the purpos

There are a few reasons that really stand out about why an alert originator of public safety communicator could choose to send a "post-alert message" (note: these are traditionally referred by in their jargon terms as an "all clear message"). For example, it can help to reduce calls to 911 to ask about the situation; it can eliminate posts to social media that create additional fears; it can help to off-set the rumoring that begins in the absence of information. But most o

Once in a while, a message will pop into the warn.pbs.org feed that is exceptional. This is one of those times.** A complete, plain language, 360-character WEA to end evacuation for a wildfire. A complete, plain language, 360-character WEA to end evacuation for a wildfire. This message includes the SOURCE (here they use an abbreviation, which is not always recommended, but this is a post-alert message so we can assume the message receivers also got an initial message telling

A few weeks ago, we wrote about "what makes a good missing person message?" and why an "all clear message" is so important. In this post, we link the two together with an interesting example that many organizations are now facing - how and when to notify beyond the original boundaries of the WEA. For a quick review, let's first look at the missing person message that was sent. This message includes the source, the event, the location of interest and where the children were

We like to highlight good messages and this Evacuation Order for flooding hits most of the marks. Issued by the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office, where they have had a lot of practice alerting due to wildfires, this message follows the structure, that is, the ORDER of contents, that is recommended by decades of social science research and found in The Warning Lexicon. It also makes use of key VISUAL CUES to draw the reader's attention to words that stand out - EVACUATION ORDER