Why America’s emergency-alerts systems need improving

https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2018/02/economist-explains-3

---

Hawaii’s recent false missile alert has cast light on (使真相大白) their shortcomings

Feb 6th 2018by B.S.

SOME of America’s “wireless emergency alert” (WEA) systems are poorly designed. After most smartphone users in Hawaii were instructed on the morning of January 13th to seek shelter from an incoming ballistic missile (弹道导弹), it took the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HEMA) 38 frantic (忙乱的) minutes to correct the error with a follow-up message. Meanwhile people were speeding to find their loved ones or to reach seemingly safer spots, including culverts (涵洞) and road tunnels. At least one man died of a heart attack. Officials initially attributed the fiasco (惨败) to an employee who had selected and then confirmed “Missile alert” in a drop-down computer menu, instead of “Test missile alert”. But on January 30th investigators announced that the employee believed that a missile had really been launched—and that he had confused drills and real events at least twice previously.

HEMA now requires alerts to be approved by two employees, an improvement on a system that a spokesman concedes was designed more for speed than for preventing mistakes. A “false-alarm” text has been added to the list of messages that can be sent immediately without a preparation-and-drafting process. The employee at the heart of the mistake has been sacked (解雇), a rarity for this sort of government job. These steps are encouraging. Officials misled by a false alarm might take actions that would worsen the situation or even trigger a military response, perhaps by a regime with poor intelligence capabilities.

But emergency-alert systems have other shortcomings. Though HEMA can warn a single neighbourhood about, say, a flash flood, some agencies use software that can only alert large areas. During fires that killed dozens in California last autumn, officials in counties including Napa and Sonoma did not send WEAs, as they feared that the imprecision of the alerts would result in roads clogged with vehicles from places that would have been evacuated unnecessarily. Furthermore, alerts are capped at 90 characters, which can be a problem if extra instructions are necessary. WEAs are blocked during phone calls and cannot include imagery like a map, or even a link to one. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees WEAs, notes that “many” handset models do not receive them. Some smaller American telecoms companies do not even send WEAs to their customers; participation in the programme is voluntary.

Some of these issues will be remedied. Despite resistance from CTIA, a telecoms lobby, the Federal Communications Commission voted on January 30th to require telecoms companies that do send WEAs to make sure they reach every mobile in the area designated by emergency officials, to an accuracy of a tenth of a mile (about 160 metres). That requirement kicks in from November 2019. From May 2019 WEAs must be able to handle messages containing 360 characters and links to online content. Rattled (慌乱的) Hawaiians may perhaps be grateful that their scary experience has helped to focus minds.