Emergency Alerts Research Articles

How Individuals Process NWS Weather Warning Messages on Their Cell Phones

AbstractU.S. government officials are focusing their attention on how to deliver timely and effective warning information to the public, especially given the devastating weather-related events that have occurred in recent years. With the increase of cell phones (and in particular, web-capable smartphones), weather warnings sent through various cellular technologies represent one way for officials to quickly notify an increasingly mobile public. Cellular technology innovations also make it possible for officials to broadcast information-rich media like graphics to cell phones. Whether warning messages must include such “rich” media to be effective remains an open question. The current study investigates the effectiveness of National Weather Service (NWS) warning messages sent either in plain text or in text that includes a radar image of the storm. The research protocol was modeled after the interactive National Weather Service (iNWS) messaging service currently available to NWS core partners. In the study, participants read full-text NWS warnings of tornadoes or flash floods that either did or did not include a radar image of the storm. The researchers timed participants' ability to decide if a critical town was in the warning area, and then probed their understanding of the message content. Results show that participants' decision times to the town question did not differ between the graphic and no-graphic conditions. None of the other message content measures differed as a function of message condition. The results have potential implications for the federal government's new Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system, which, as yet, is limited to text-only warnings.

Four major disaster occurrences and the Spanish language media: a lack of risk communication

Purpose– The Hispanic community is the fastest growing ethnic group in the USA and is currently the largest minority group with tremendous buying power. This trend has seen a significant growth with respect to the Spanish-language media in recent years. Along with the media ' s ability to entertain, comes the responsibility to educate and warn its audiences of eminent threats and disasters. The aim of this paper is to look at the Spanish-language media ' s efforts to warn and prepare its listeners for local and national emergencies.Design/methodology/approach– Using descriptive and explanatory methods the author looks at the failures of the Spanish language media to communicate emergency warnings in both the Saragosa, Texas tornado and in the case of hurricane Katrina.Findings– Research indicated that pressure from constituents, however, forced a change on the Spanish language industry.Research limitations/implications– The research was limited by not having first hand contact with the Spanish language media.Practical implications– The practical implication of this research which has social overtones is that providing disaster warnings to the non-English speaking population in the USA is achievable. Emergency managers and first responders need to be aware of issues regarding non-English speakers.Social implications– The implications for this research is that all individuals will be notified of emergencies even non-English speakers.Originality/value– The issues on non-English speakers in emergency situations have come up before. Nevertheless, this work identifies a practical solution by involving the Spanish language media in emergency alerts. It is essential that this tremendous resource be involved in emergency alerts.

Diversity of Emergency Codes in Hospitals

Background: Hospitals must be prepared to deal efficiently and effectively with different emergencies. To accomplish this, several countries have standardized their hospital emergency codes to improve their response capability. This is particularly important in Puerto Rico given that many health professionals, particularly physicians and nurses, provide services in more than one hospital. This study examined the emergency codes and alerts utilized in Puerto Rican hospitals. Objective: To assess hospitals’ level of emergency preparedness and response capability related to the variability of emergency codes and alerts utilized to respond to a situation in Puerto Rico. Method: A survey was conducted to characterize hospital emergency department level of preparedness and response to a mass fatality incident. A total of 39 out of a sample of 44 hospitals participated in the study. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered by the research team to members of each hospital’s administrative staff to explore the following: general hospital characteristics, emergency plans, emergency department capacity, collaborative agreements, personnel training, emergency communications, laboratory facilities, treatment protocols, security, epidemiologic surveillance, equipment and infrastructure. Results: Some hospitals in Puerto Rico use color coded emergency alerts, while others use key words or codes. Single color emergency codes can have different meanings in different hospitals. Conclusions: The findings clearly show that there is a lack of uniformity and clarity in the emergency codes utilized by hospitals in Puerto Rico. Single color codes have diverse meanings in different hospitals. This could adversely affect hospitals’ efficient and effective emergency response.

Third-Party Emergency Alert Systems over Cellular Text Messaging Services Providing The Security Implications

Third-Party Emergency Alert Systems over Cellular Text Messaging Services Providing The Security Implications

Assessing Disaster Preparedness among Latino Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers in Eastern North Carolina

Natural disasters including hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and fires often involve substantial physical and mental impacts on affected populations and thus are public health priorities. Limited research shows that vulnerable populations such as the low-income, socially isolated migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFW) are particularly susceptible to the effects of natural disasters. This research project assessed the awareness, perceived risk, and practices regarding disaster preparedness and response resources and identified barriers to utilization of community and government services during or after a natural disaster among Latino MSFWs’ and their families. Qualitative (N = 21) focus groups (3) and quantitative (N = 57) survey methodology was implemented with Latino MSFWs temporarily residing in rural eastern North Carolina to assess perceived and actual risk for natural disasters. Hurricanes were a top concern among the sample population, many participants shared they lacked proper resources for an emergency (no emergency kit in the house, no evacuation plan, no home internet, a lack of knowledge of what should be included in an emergency kit, etc.). Transportation and language were found to be additional barriers. Emergency broadcasts in Spanish and text message alerts were identified by the population to be helpful for disaster alerts. FEMA, American Red Cross, local schools and the migrant clinic were trusted places for assistance and information. In summary, tailored materials, emergency alerts, text messages, and news coverage concerning disaster threats should be provided in the population’s native language and when feasible delivered in a culturally appropriate mechanism such as “charlas” (talks) and brochures.

Personalized Alert Notifications and Evacuation Routes in Indoor Environments

The preparedness phase is crucial in the emergency management process for reaching an adequate level of readiness to react to potential threats and hazards. During this phase, emergency plans are developed to establish, among other procedures, evacuation and emergency escape routes. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can support and improve these procedures providing appropriate, updated and accessible information to all people in the affected zone. Current emergency management and evacuation systems do not adapt information to the context and the profile of each person, so messages received in the emergency might be useless. In this paper, we propose a set of criteria that ICT-based systems could achieve in order to avoid this problem adapting emergency alerts and evacuation routes to different situations and people. Moreover, in order to prove the applicability of such criteria, we define a mechanism that can be used as a complement of traditional evacuation systems to provide personalized alerts and evacuation routes to all kinds of people during emergency situations in working places. This mechanism is composed by three main components: CAP-ONES for notifying emergency alerts, NERES for defining emergency plans and generating personalized evacuation routes, and iNeres as the interface to receive and visualize these routes on smartphones. The usability and understandability of proposed interface has been assessed through a user study performed in a fire simulation in an indoor environment. This evaluation demonstrated that users considered iNeres easy to understand, to learn and to use, and they also found very innovative the idea to use smartphones as a support for escaping instead of static signals on walls and doors.

The Effects of Communication Interface Proximity on User Anxiety for Crime Alerts Received on Desktop, Laptop, and Hand-Held Devices

This experiment investigates effects of communication interface proximity, which was conceptualized as three different media platforms (desktop, laptop, and hand-held device), on college students’ anxiety when receiving emergency alerts about on-campus crimes via emails and text messages. It proposes a new dimension of proximity, interface proximity, and suggests a shift in the emphasis of proximity from audience to event to user to interface. Ninety seven students received alerts on one of the three devices for 2 days. User anxiety increased for news-like information such as crime alerts and varied according to the proximity of the media platform. A three-level model of anxiety, including trait anxiety, media exposure to negative compelling news, and a trigger event, all contributed to participants’ anxiety.

Characterizing the Security Implications of Third-Party Emergency Alert Systems over Cellular Text Messaging Services

Cellular text messaging services are increasingly being relied upon to disseminate critical information during emergencies. Accordingly, a wide range of organizations including colleges and universities now partner with third-party providers that promise to improve physical security by rapidly delivering such messages. Unfortunately, these products do not work as advertised due to limitations of cellular infrastructure and therefore provide a false sense of security to their users. In this paper, we perform the first extensive investigation and characterization of the limitations of an Emergency Alert System (EAS) using text messages as a security incident response mechanism. We show emergency alert systems built on text messaging not only can meet the 10 minute delivery requirement mandated by the WARN Act, but also potentially cause other voice and SMS traffic to be blocked at rates upward of 80 percent. We then show that our results are representative of reality by comparing them to a number of documented but not previously understood failures. Finally, we analyze a targeted messaging mechanism as a means of efficiently using currently deployed infrastructure and third-party EAS. In so doing, we demonstrate that this increasingly deployed security infrastructure does not achieve its stated requirements for large populations.

Smart home technology for telemedicine and emergency management.

With the ageing population, mobility is an important issue and it deters the elderlies to visit health clinics on a regular basis. Individuals with disabilities also face the same obstacles for their out-of-home medical visits. In addition, people living in remote areas often do not get the needed health care attention unless they are willing to spend the time, effort and cost to travel. Advances in information and telecommunication technologies have made telemedicine possible. Using the latest sensor technologies, a person’s vital data can be collected in a smart home environment. The bio-information can then be transferred wirelessly or via the Internet to medical databases and the healthcare professionals. Using the appropriate sensing apparatus at a smart home setting, patients, elderlies and people with disabilities can have their health signals and information examined on a real-time and archival basis. Recovery process can be charted on a regular basis. Remote emergency alerts can be intercepted and responded quickly. Health deterioration can be monitored closely enabling corrective actions. Medical practitioners can therefore provide the necessary health-related services to more people. This paper surveys and compiles the state-of-the-art smart home technologies and telemedicine systems.

CAP 기반 ATSC Mobile DTV 재난방송 시스템 설계 및 구현

For mobile emergency broadcast service, first of all, we shall understand transmission characteristics of each mobile broadcast system which might be appled for it and then analyse of the related disaster (emergency) standards based on emergency characteristic own. In this paper, we propose a CAP-based emergency alert broadcasting system for ATSC Mobile DTV system which has been accepted for the mobile broadcasting system in USA. Since there is no standard for emergency broadcasting using ATSC mobile DTV until now, we analyze common alert protocol in USA and then we proposed Emergency Alert Protocol for ATSC Mobile DTV based on it. And we have designed and implemented our proposed system to verify the effectiveness of it. As a result we show the possibility of emergency alert broadcasting for ATSC Mobile DTV.

ARTVTS: In Single-Chip Automated Real Time Vehicle Tracking System with Automated Emergency Alert System

The development of satellite communication technology has brought the Vehicle tracking systems to the day-to-day life of the common man. Today GPS fitted cars, ambulances, fleets and police vehicles are common on the roads. All the existing technology can support only tracking the vehicle place and status. No such systems have implemented emergency alert during accidents, using smart phone. Real time vehicular tracking system incorporates a hardware device installed in the vehicle and a remote Tracking server. The information is transmitted to Tracking server using GSM/GPRS modem on GSM network by using SMS or using direct TCP/IP connection with Tracking server through GPRS. Tracking server also has GSM/GPRS modem that receives vehicle location information via GSM network and stores all this information in computer database. This information is available to authorized users of the system via website over the internet.The embedded device fitted with “sensors”. The sensors used are to provide Automated Emergency Alert in case of accident (Inform nearby Police, Hospital and Owner through SMS), Identification of Halts and Duration, Emergency Message Display in Centralized computer, Automatic update of Emergency number, Fuel Tank Pilferage Monitoring and Distance and Speed computation. The data from the sensors are transferred to centralized server through GSM enabled device. GPS device is used to track the vehicle locations in latitude and longitude. The GPS device is received raw satellites data in this data is not understandable first we convert raw data to digital form and transmitted to centralize computer. Each licence vehicle owner can access the data using web service and can retrieve all the real time data and stored previous data in database. Because whole Proposed system control in a single chip so proposed system allows for the stability, equilibrium, less resource use and sustainability of a tracking system and save of the people life.

The Value of Government Mandated Location-Based Services in Emergencies in Australia

The adoption of mobile technologies for emergency management has the capacity to save lives. In Australia in February 2009, the Victorian Bushfires claimed 173 lives, the worst peace-time disaster in the nation’s history. The Australian government responded swiftly to the tragedy by going to tender for mobile applications that could be used during emergencies, such as mobile alerts and location services. These applications have the ability to deliver personalized information direct to the citizen during crises, complementing traditional broadcasting mediums like television and radio. Indeed governments have a responsibility to their citizens to safeguard them against both natural and human-made hazards and today national security has grown to encapsulate such societal and economic securitization. However, some citizens and lobby groups have emphasized that such breakthrough technologies need to be deployed with caution as they are fraught with ethical considerations, including the potential for breaches in privacy, security and trust. The other problem is that real world implementations of national emergency alerts have not always worked reliably and their value has come into question as a result. This paper provides a big picture view of the value of government-mandated location-based services during emergencies, and the challenges ensuing from their use.

Communication of Urgent Public Health Messages to Urban Populations: Lessons From the Massachusetts Water Main Break

To study when and how an urgent public health message about a boil-water order reached an urban population after the Massachusetts water main break. In-person surveys were conducted in waiting areas of clinics and emergency departments at a large urban safety net hospital within 1 week of the event. Of 533 respondents, 97% were aware of the order; 34% of those who lived in affected cities or towns were potentially exposed to contaminated water. Among those who were aware, 98% took action. Respondents first received the message through word of mouth (33%), television (25%), cellular telephone calls (20%), landline calls (10%), and other modes of communication (12%). In multivariate analyses, foreign-born respondents and those who lived outside the city of Boston had a higher risk of exposure to contaminated water. New modes (eg, cellular telephones) were used more commonly by females and younger individuals (ages 18 to 34). Individuals who did not speak English at home were more likely to receive the message through their personal networks. Given the increasing prevalence of cellular telephone use, public officials should encourage residents to register landline and cellular telephone for emergency alerts and must develop creative ways to reach immigrants and non-English-speaking groups quickly via personal networks.

Evolving an information logistics database for geospatial early warning systems

Information logistics are a central part of any early warning system (EWS) because warning messages and information are delivered to target groups with individual requirements, different levels of understanding, distinct perceptions and varying personal abilities. Nevertheless EWS architectures often neglect the importance of information logistics. Therefore, a database model as an architectural base layer of information logistics for geospatial EWS to disseminate customized messages in a multilingual environment is developed, providing a generic approach to be applied to each EWS. The database model is based on two recently introduced standards for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over all types of networks and sharing systems among emergency information systems, the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and the Emergency Data Exchange Language-Distribution Element (EDXL-DE).

Anti-jamming broadcast communication using uncoordinated spread spectrum techniques

Jamming-resistant communication is crucial for safety-critical applications such as emergency alert broadcasts or the dissemination of navigation signals in adversarial settings. In such applications, mission-critical messages are broadcast to a large and unknown number of (potentially untrusted) receivers that rely on the availability, integrity, and authenticity of the messages; here, availability primarily refers to the ability to communicate in the presence of jamming. Common techniques to counter jamming-based denial-of-service attacks such as Frequency Hopping (FH) and Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) cannot be applied in such settings because they depend on secret pairwise or group keys shared between the sender and the receivers before the communication. This dependency entails serious or unsolvable scalability and keysetup problems or weak jamming-resistance (a single malicious receiver can compromise the whole system). As a solution, in this work, we propose uncoordinated spread spectrum techniques that enable anti-jamming broadcast communication without shared secrets. Uncoordinated spread spectrum techniques can handle an unlimited amount of (malicious) receivers. We present two instances (Uncoordinated FH and Uncoordinated DSSS) and analyze differences in their performance as well as their combination. We further discuss the applications of these techniques to anti-jamming navigation broadcast, bootstrapping of coordinated spread spectrum communication, and anti-jamming emergency alerts.

Vibration Signaling in Mobile Devices for Emergency Alerting: A Study With Deaf Evaluators

In the United States, a nationwide Commercial Mobile Alert Service (CMAS) is being planned to alert cellular mobile device subscribers to emergencies occurring near the location of the mobile device. The plan specifies a unique audio attention signal as well as a unique vibration attention signal (for mobile devices set to vibrate) to identify that the incoming message pertains to an emergency. Ratings of vibration signals of varying lengths and patterns were obtained from 44 deaf users of mobile devices for the perceived effectiveness of the signal in getting their attention in an emergency situation. Longer signals received higher ratings than shorter ones, and three signals with temporal on-off patterns were rated significantly better than a constant vibration. The U.S. government's recommended vibration signal for the CMAS, an important feature for access to emergency alerts by deaf persons, is supported by the results of the study.

지상파 DMB 자동 재난경보방송 표준을 위한 재난 메시지 및 메시지 분할 방법 설계

본 논문은 T-DMB 자동재난경보방송표준을 위한 재난 메시지 및 재난 메시지 분할 방법 설계에 대하여 기술한다. 재난 메시지는 T-DMB 수신기에 전달되는 메시지로서 재난경보를 위한 핵심적인 내용으로 구성한다. 이러한 내용 중 정형화가 가능한 내용은 코드화된 필드로 표현하고 비정형 내용은 단문으로 표현한다. 논문에서는 각 필드 설계를 위한 분석과 각 필드의 의미와 문법에 대해 기술한다. 다음으로 재난 메시지의 분할 방법에 대해 설명한다. 본 논문에서 정의한 재난 메시지의 크기는 대부분 FIG 최대 크기를 넘어 분할 계층이 필요하다. 하지만 현 지상파 DMB 송수신 정합 표준은 FIDC에서의 메시지 분할 방법을 정의하고 있지 않다. 이를 해결하기 위해 본 논문에서는 기존의 FIG type 0 메시지 분할 방법과 패킷모드 분할 전송 방법에 비해 잡음이 많은 환경에서도 유연하고 신속한 수신을 보장하는 방법을 제안하였다. 이러한 연구 결과 앞으로 시범 서비스를 통하여 추가적으로 개선해야 할 보완점을 파악하였다. This paper presents the design of alert message and message segmentation method for the Terrestrial DMB Automatic Emergency Alert Service Standard. This paper begins with the introduction of the standard and some background. The alert message contains the essential information of the alert. Structured information is represented as coded fields and the unstructured as short sentences. Design factors of each field are analyzed first. Next each field’s semantics and syntax are described. The message segmentation method is presented next. The previous study selected FIDC as the message delivery channel. However, in most cases, the size of the alert message exceeds the maximum size of FIG, which is the basic unit packet for the channel. The current T-DMB standard does not support the segmentation method for FIDC. To solve the problem, this paper proposes an elegant segmentation method that garantees reliable, flexible, and fast receiver characteristic. This paper concludes with some additional tasks that should be resolved before the full-time alert service.

Community-Based Hazard Warning in Sri Lanka: Miniaturization Assessment of Terminal Devices in the Last-Mile Link

The M=9+ earthquake in Sumatara, Indonesia, on December 26, 2004 at 00:59 GMT triggered destructive tsunami waves, which greatly affected Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, and Thailand. People were caught unawares as there was no warning system in place for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. Overall it is estimated that more than 250,000 in the region perished. The aim of the Last-Mile Hazard Warning System (LM-HWS) was to deploy various alert and notification wireless technologies intended to reduce the vulnerability of local communities to natural and manmade hazards in Sri Lanka. The project adopted an all-hazards, all- media approach designed around a set of five wireless communication technologies: Addressable Satellite Radios for Emergency Alerting, Remote Alarm Devices, Mobile Phones, Fixed Phones and Very Small Aperture Terminals. The pilot project entitled, Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination, or the HazInfo Project, involved deployment, training, and field-testing of the technologies, in various combinations, across 32 tsunami-affected villages, using the Common Alerting Protocol 1 (CAP) for data interchange with content provided in three languages (English, Sinhalese and Tamil). The ultimate LM-HWS intentions are to introduce Alerting and Notification to improve the situational awareness of all-hazards in 15,000 Sarvodaya 2 embedded Communities in the Island of Sri Lanka. While this paper discusses the overall performance of the LM-HWS its main purpose is to report on one aspect of the effectiveness measure - identifying the need for miniaturized terminal devices that not only can be used during hazard alert and notification but also during the response and recovery stages of the disaster management cycle. The measure introduced gives a set of guidelines for equipment manufacturers as well as a mechanism for planners to set a strategy when introducing terminal devices in to a Last-Mile warning system.

Mobile emergency alerting made accessible

It is critical that next-generation warning systems be developed such that persons with disabilities are given equal access to emergency alerts. This paper discusses research and development activities to provide next-generation, mobile emergency alerting systems to people with disabilities. A framework for prototyping mobile phone-based emergency alert systems and multiple systems built on this framework are presented. Results from field trials indicated support and the need for accessible emergency alert/notification features. The paper concludes that simple accommodations can be made to services and software on mobile devices that greatly increase the accessibility of mobile emergency alerts to persons with disabilities.

CAP-ONES: an emergency notification system for all

In this paper, we present an ontology-based system for managing emergency alert notifications. Our purpose is to generate emergency alerts that are accessible to different kinds of people, paying special attention to more vulnerable collectives like impaired people. By adapting alerts to different devices and users, we can allow Emergency Management Systems (EMSs) to communicate with collectives like blind or deaf people who otherwise are unreachable by usual channels. Moreover, if we consider the constraints imposed by the nature of the emergency situations, we can also improve the information transmission to cope with situational disabilities (e.g., smoke during a fire can cause low vision problems). We centred our system architecture on two characteristics: 1) an ontology that codifies knowledge about accessibility, devices, disabilities, emergencies and media so the alert notification can be tailored according to different parameters, 2) an open standard like the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) that enables our system to interoperate with other existing systems.