Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
system or geographical region covered, all had their genesis in the Emergency Alert
System (EAS), which is operated by the Federal Communications Commission.
2
The EAS evolved from the Cold War era Emergency Broadcast System. Whereas
the sole responsibility of the activation of the EAS rests with the President of the
United States (authority delegated to the Director of FEMA),
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local emergency
alert systems and activation protocols, procedures vary widely.
There are several factors that should be assessed in terms of the local emergency
alert system; all are relatively equal in importance. First, “how long does it take
for a message/alert to be broadcast and received by the systems subscribers?” The
system available may reach all, some, or none of its subscribers within three or four
minutes. The longer the system takes for the alert to be
received
by its subscrib-
ers, the less it can be used, in most cases, to warn potential victims of an ongoing
active shooter attack. On the other hand, the system is extremely useful to alert
others in the attack vicinity and to provide other appropriate risk communications.
Many organizations, especially educational institutions, also utilize other alerting
mechanisms such as PA announcements, sirens, and horns. All of these can be used
to immediately notify those within a particular facility or zone. It is important to
thoroughly train these individuals as to what specific alerts might mean, unless
they are PA announcements in clear language. For example, a long sustained siren
might mean “evacuate,” whereas a series of short siren blasts could mean “lock
down and stay where you are.”
The second question that must be answered is, “Who has the responsibility
and/or authority to send an alert?” In some organizations, this might require the
concurrence of a small committee; in others any one of a select group (4 or 5) may
be able to authorize the alert. The process can impact the length of time needed
to get an alert out. The third factor is the audience that will receive the alert. Is it
everyone in an organization or only those that have voluntarily subscribed? What
about nonemployees and visitors, are they alerted as well? The final factor is the
actual message that will be sent. In many systems, there is a limitation on how
many characters can be in any one message. Does the organization have predrafted,
“canned” messages that can be quickly sent on the alert system?
As can be seen, there are several factors that can influence the potential effec-
tiveness of an emergency alert system, depending on its purpose. Given an active
shooter incident, there are basically three alert messaging purposes that should be
given consideration. The first is to warn those in the immediate vicinity of where
an attack is occurring. Given the warning, they can either evacuate the vicinity
or “lock it down.” Whether individuals should evacuate or lock down and stay
put is based on the location of the shooter and the nearest evacuation route.
1
In
many organizations, the general practice is to hide out and lock down the facility.
Locking down a facility hinders the ability of the shooter to move about freely; it
also hinders evacuations. In addition, the usefulness of an alert advising individuals
to evacuate or “stay put/lock down” is dependent on how quickly the alert can be
sounded and the knowledge of where the shooter is.
