NEMA Plugs IPAWS to Congress

In Congressional testimony this week, a representative of the National Emergency Managers Association (NEMA) re-stated NEMA's support for the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). Arkansas Homeland Security Advisor David Maxwell was on Capitol Hill to testify about an amendment to the Robert Stafford Act that, among other things, directs FEMA to modernize and implement IPAWS. Funding would also be provided.

Maxwell said NEMA considers IPAWS, "a valuable tool for state and local government warning functions." He said NEMA is pleased with the fact that the Amendment specifically calls for creation of a Modernization Advisory Council Committee, which would include state and local emergency management officials.

IPAWS is intended to be a roll-up of a number of national initiatives that would strengthen capability to issue Presidential alerts, imminent threat warnings, and Amber Alerts. Although criticized by the General Accounting Office last year for a lack of movement, IPAWS has shown recent signs of progress. Most significant is approval of design standards for the Commercial Mobile Alert System. By 2012 local, state, and federal emergency management professionals should be able to issue alerts to targeted geographic areas via cellular. Also, under the IPAWS umbrella, the Emergency Alert System (EAS) has recently been getting a work-out. A statewide EAS test was recently conducted in Alaska, and the FCC issued rules to allow EAS to be tested nationally. IPAWS has also been recently showing off a plume modeling and high-resolultion weather modeling application that can be used for notifications.

All the best,

Rick