New National Emergency Alert System

| 06.28.2006 | 08:06:491713 |

June 28: On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported President Bush signing an executive order to revamp the nation's Emergency Alert System. The current system, the Post reported, has been criticized for "critical" weaknesses which have been "unaddresed since the 2001 terrorist attacks and exposed again last year by Hurricane Katrina." The executive order, given to Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, is seeking "an effective, reliable, integrated, flexible, and comprehensive system to alert and warn the American people in situations of war, terrorist attack, natural disaster, or other hazards to public safety and well-being (public alert and warning system)."

The move by the White House to revamp the EAS "follows mounting criticism that the nation's alert systems are outmoded relics of the Cold War," the Post reported. "The first was set up in 1951 to enable the president to address the public in the event of a nuclear attack through a chain of television and radio broadcasters."

Currently, participation in the system on the state and local level is voluntary. Additionally EAS messaging has been limited by the Federal Communications Commission to two minutes while the technology used to deliver the messaging is outdated and in need of repair.

The Post reported that "The Emergency Alert System was never used during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but the independent commission that investigated them concluded that 'adequate communications' are central to government and private-sector preparedness."

That means, according to the Bush order that "an integrated alert and warning system that reaches as many Americans as possible through as many forms of communication as possible - television, radios, PDAs, cellphones, et cetera," would be integrated into a seamless network. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will oversee the system.