Emergency Alerts

February 25, 2013 — The Chief, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released an Order [PS Docket No. 07-287] that officially changes the name of the system used to transmit emergency alerts to the public from “Commercial Mobile Alert System” (CMAS) to “Wireless Emergency Alerts” (WEA). Under the Warning Alert and Response Network Act (WARN Act), the FCC adopted the essential technical requirements to enable commercial mobile service providers to transmit emergency alerts.

The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies hosted a workshop to examine current knowledge and research on geotargeted disaster alerts and warnings on February 21-22, 2013 in Washington, D.C.  The workshop was organized by the Committee on Geotargeted Disaster Alerts and Warnings, which is charged with examining current knowledge and research to improve the effectiveness of alerts and warnings with greater geographical precision.  Helena Mitchell, Wireless RERC Principal Investigator and a member of the committee, moderated the workshop panel, Lessons fro

August 29, 2012 –The National Federation of the Blind and AccuWeather® have joined forces to provide accessible weather alerts to the blind and print disabled.  Audible weather alerts will be disseminated via NFB-Newsline®, a free service that offers hundreds of newspapers and magazines in audible formats.  According to NFB, the service is the first of its kind, bringing independent access to emergency information to the blind.
 

04.16.2012 – April marked the end of the year-long Mobile Emergency Alert System (M-EAS) Pilot Project sponsored by PBS, LG Electronics, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Dr.