Strong Emergency Notification Recommendations in California

The California legislature is mulling over recommendations for an enhanced statewide notification system. The suggestions were produced by a diverse task force of government and industry personnel working over a number of months. The legislature ordered California Emergency Management Agency (CALEMA) to create the task force, take a look at the issue, then report back. The result was a comprehensive set of recommendations that covered the gamut from writing messages to taking advantage of the alert and warning systems already in place in the state. (A copy of the draft is available here.)

Kelly Huston is Assistant Secretary at CALEMA, one of the senior officials who worked with the task force. He told us that while the legislature considers what to do about the recommendations, CALEMA is developing ways to support local agencies with their emergency notification challenges, based on the task force's findings.

He says, "It's not just a technical problem. It's multi-faceted." CALEMA has broken the various aspects of alerts and warnings into pieces, with different sections of the agency working to develop standards and recommendations for local agencies. Policy and governance are being considered, as well as standards and best practices.

Huston told us that people need to be open-minded about alerts and warnings. He says there are so many tools available that we need to be "very careful about choosing the right things, the right methods."

The report is a worthwhile read. In our opinion, it's excellent and one of the more comprehensive endeavors of its type we've seen. The task force was diverse, representing a wide spectrum of the communities of interest. Yes, there were conflicts and differences of opinions during the report's development, but the final product hits the mark. (We'll discuss various report findings in this forum at a later time.)

Too bad the State of California is broke. If the legislature were to follow the task force's recommendations, the particularly difficult challenges of emergency notification in California would be in good hands…and well ahead of most of the rest of the nation. Meantime, kudos to CALEMA for working within their limits to use the report to help local agencies.

All the best,

Rick