"Police incident" is not specific.

For several years now, I've been pondering how to better name a hazard in a message that describes an active police incident. We know that not naming the hazard affects message understanding (a key outcome measured by scientists who study the effects of warning messages) and this relates directly to feelings of self-efficacy, that is, feeling like you can take the right action to protect yourself, leading to protective action.

We studied this in response to a message for civil disturbance, dam failure, and wildfire. The findings were most pronounced for wildfire where people expressed a need to know what the threat was in order to take appropriate action (in this case, it was evacuation). The action in response to for civil disturbance was to take shelter indoors; for dam failure it was to leave areas that could flood. For unfamiliar, potentially fast-moving threats, the hazard name certainly helps to cue people to appropriate actions.

Recently, an alert was issued by the Eugene Police Department that gave little indication of the hazard type. They were "responding to an incident," which would suggest that there is some sort of event occurring that requires law enforcement (people with guns) to show up and take action. At least, it seems like it SHOULD suggest that to be the case.

A Wireless Emergency Alert issued for an "incident" requiring evacuation or shelter in place actions.

As with most alerts that make the news, this was not the case. In fact, due to an error in geography, this alert issued at 1:30AM, went far beyond the boundaries that it was intended to alert and instead was disseminated county wide.

But it seems the trouble became triple due to the vagueness of the hazard named "an incident" and the conditional guidance that was included in the message.

Conditional guidance is a term used to describe the various actions a person could take based upon their own perception of safety. When multiple instructions are offered in a message (such as, "run, hide, fight"), people have to determine where they are in relation to the threat (proximal or distal) in order to decide what to do to protect themselves. In this case, the EPD instructed people currently in the area to "evacuate the area or shelter in place." Such conditional guidance combined with the stress of receiving an emergency alert in the middle of the night could make it very difficult to know what action to take that would be correct in this situation. Not knowing what the "incident" is only compounds the impact.

Others were asked to "avoid the area to allow emergency vehicles faster access to and from the location." That adds a whole new dimension to the situation, doesn't it? If emergency vehicles means fire trucks and EMS, and this warranted a county-wide alert, it must be serious, right?

I can imagine receiving this message and wondering "how close am I to this event that is going on? If I stay here am I putting myself at greater risk? How do I do this 'shelter in place' action in a way that will keep me and my family safe? Will we be told to leave? I'd like to leave but the message says to avoid the area - so maybe they mean stay off the roads? What am I supposed to do?"

The reports out of Eugene indicated that this is the line of thinking that many residents experienced. Earlier in the evening, prior to receiving the alert, many people received a reverse 911 call telling them to evacuate. That initial evacuation order prompted concerns that there was an active wildfire approaching. It turns out this incident was a search for a suspect who was believed to be carrying high powered rifles and dressed in body armor.

I can see three issues with this alert. First, it's a policy decision to issue a message to persons who are likely to be sleeping in the middle of the night. Second, it's a technology issue (possibly a user error) when a message goes county wide instead of being narrowly targeted. Third, is a message content issue when vague, conditional, potentially contradictory and inconsistent information is sent to people who must then make a determination about how to act in the absence of good information.

Here are some options to replace the words "police incident" to make it less vague and more understandable:

• "responding to reports of shots fired" or

• "responding to reports of an armed gunman" or

• "responding to a bomb threat" or

• "responding to an active shooter."

In each case, it identifies the specific threat from which people are being asked to protect themselves rather than the response of the organization. If the threat is know n to be active (and not just a report), the message could also include an impact statement such as "if you are out in this area, you could be injured."

There was one more thing that we learned in that study about naming the hazard. When organizations did not name the hazard, they were perceived to be less credible and trustworthy. Our research participants thought they were hiding something from them. With trust being such a difficult commodity to gain and keep, a good alert certainly has the potential to go a long way.

For more information on how to write a good warning, be sure to read thewarnroom.com and download the Warning Lexicon.