From my perspective as a scholar who studies alerts and warnings, the thing about missing person alerts that really stands out is that they aren't alerts to get people to take an action to protect themselves, they are alerts to get people to take an action to help another person who is possibly endangered. Calling on the public to help to find that person and bring them to safety through the Wireless Emergency Alert system suggests that the case is dire enough to warrant sig

At the Warn Room, we frequently hear about the need to issue "targeted and personalized" messages. This is primarily in reference to specific populations with differential risk and the need to reach them and communicate with them about those needs in culturally appropriate ways. Its very difficult to do this with a Wireless Emergency Alert. Because WEAs are delivered to anyone within or entering a specific geographical area, it isn't likely that the message can be, or shou

Wireless Emergency Alerts for weather events generally fall into the domain of the National Weather Service (for a select set of hazards - see here for the list). For unfamiliar hazards, and those that are not messaged by NWS, local alerting authorities can step in to help communities understand what to expect and how to prepare. In this case, we have three examples of messages sent for winter weather that affected the Atlanta urban area. Let's take a look. In the first mes

Whew, those Santa Ana winds that fall on Southern California can be brutal. When accompanied by fire weather and red flag conditions, you know you could be facing a bad day. That's exactly what happened December 10-12 in Malibu, CA and the events could have been even more dire, but clear communication appears to have helped reduce the tragic impacts so close to the holidays. Three key messages stand out in this event. All three were sent by Los Angeles County Fire and all

What is the significance of an "all clear" message? When is it right to send one? And what should it say?

Some hazards have obvious early stages, where it is possible to issue messages that can help local residents and community members to prepare for future events. Hurricane, storm surge, and wildfire all have pre-event stages that can be accompanied by messages to alert people to the threat, the risk it poses, the timing of impact, and provide guidance on how to prepare. The same goes for FLOODS. As rain falls and rivers are predicted to rise and overflow their banks, its th

Messages for missing persons have the potential to motivate receivers to pay attention, look around, conduct a search, report known information, and even help to recover the missing person. They are issued when families, friends, and co-workers have exhausted their own searches and law enforcement steps in to assist, expanding the reach of a message beyond personal networks and tapping into technologies like IPAWS and WEA to ask for help. In other words, in many cases, they

This message got a LOT of unwanted attention on October 7, 2024 after it was issued to the entire state of Texas at 4:53am. Reading through social media commentary posted to X and Reddit, a person could quickly see the impact it was having on people who were still asleep that Monday morning before dawn. Suggestions included how to file complaints to the FCC or to contact public safety officials, and Google reported public searches for "how to turn off WEA" spiked that day.

Its time to talk a bit about jargon again... but this time in relation to CURFEW. Curfew is defined as: a regulation requiring people to remain indoors between specified hours, usually at night, frequently for the protection of the community. As such, there are consequences for people who violate a curfew, such as being stopped by police, and remaining out past curfew can be considered unlawful behavior. In some cases, there are some exemptions to a curfew, meaning that ev

For the past ten years, every time I have taught a class on crisis communication, I have asked my students to engage in an exercise where they must write an emergency alert for escaped/missing honeybees. They're given information about the time the bees were last seen in a lab plus a description of their hardiness and some of their behaviors. Then they're told "you have 10 minutes to write a message; people's lives could be in danger." The really engaged students will scram

This past week, a catastrophic storm ripped through the Southeast US, leaving communities destroyed and more than 230 deaths (so far). We at The Warn Room have heard from many practitioners that WEAs could be the channel that delivers life-saving information to those at risk and we agree. If you're a reader of The Warn Room blog, you know that we generally don't remove identifying information from messages, but in the case of messages like the one above, and given the gravit

By most assessments, this would be considered a complete message. It includes the source, the hazard, the location, the guidance, and the time. Good work! But that's not the problem. The problem is how the message writers contort themselves to fit the operational language that is used by responders and then use the emergency alert to educate people on what it means. NOTE: this problem is not limited to this message and this sender... if you are a reader of The Warn Room, yo

Every once and a while, we take a peek at the types of messages that a state or jurisdiction is sending to the public and find something interesting... Georgia sure does send a lot of road closure messages. It's almost as though the local and state alerting authorities are using WEA as a public notification service about traffic conditions rather than saving the channel to alert for imminent threat events. We don't really know why the state and local public safety officials

All clear messages are designed to do one thing: let people know that the event has concluded and they are safe to return or resume activities. We see a need for all clear messages in most hazard contexts - especially those that require people to shelter in place while there is an active dangerous event. People who have been evacuated for wildfire, flood, or hurricane also have a need for all clear messaging, especially when there are serious concerns that their homes and n

If you send or receive wildfire or hurricane alerts and warnings, you know that there has been a shift to the use of zones to highlight the location of the the area that should prepare to evacuate or evacuate. Software has been developed that allows public safety personnel to pre-establish zones, publish that information to webpages, publicize that information to local community members encouraging them to "know your zone" and to sign up for opt in alerts. When zones are sel

Did you know that there are at least 50 different types of missing persons messages/categories in effect across the United States. FIFTY! And they are inconsistent in naming and use, as they vary from state to state. The alerts named for specific people (Casey, Ashanti, Amber) are generally unfamiliar to people and the colors (gold, silver, amber, blue, purple, camo) don't mean anything if you haven't been trained in law enforcement. It's for these reasons that we recomme

The wildfires that erupted in New Mexico this past June were fast moving and extremely dangerous. Having messages prepared ahead of time to help local populations may be the difference between life and death. While we don't know if this message was templated prior to the event, it clearly follows the recommendations found in The Warning Lexicon and the structure of messages that are recommended in the Message Design Dashboard. This message clearly states the name of the sen

There are a lot of reasons to establish a WEA policy early in your use of IPAWS - in particular, a policy can help to guide when a message is issued, by whom, using what channels, and the language/format that represents your organization. A few ideas to consider: Your organization might create requirements for the type of hazard that deserves a WEA (i.e.; imminent threat only or include announcements and other public safety messages, or use a tiered approach that varies based

There are many ways to indicate to a community that there is a need to help find a missing person. Risk communicators can choose to use "law enforcement" language - such as "BE ON THE LOOK OUT," or BOLO, or use plain language and ask for help. Readers may say about this post "but isn't 'be on the look out' a request for help? Isn't that clear and plain language that can motivate people to engage in community-wide assistance?" Not really, no. Researchers Bean and Hasinoff wr

Law enforcement messaging is tricky. Do you include content about the nature of the law enforcement activity? Do you give details about the event when it is unfolding? How do you balance the need for quick messaging and the potential for inaccuracy while helping to protect the integrity of the response and the safety of the population? Research on what we call "naming the hazard" has shown that populations can better understand the threat if they are told what the hazard is