FEMA Close to Adopting Standard for Emergency Alerts

A new report says the Federal Emergency Management Agency is planning to adopt a common alerting protocol as a national emergency warning and alert system as early as next year.

In an article on the Federal Computer Week website, Alice Lipowicz says FEMA announced late last week that it is expecting to adopt the Common Alerting Protocol 1.1, which would create a national infrastructure so digital messages could be sent seamlessly to televisions, radios, and computers.

“The protocol is an open-source technical standard developed by volunteers seven years ago. It was accepted by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) in 2004, and later refined by that organization. It has been widely adopted among emergency managers and broadcasters as well as disaster managers at FEMA. It has long been anticipated that FEMA would make it an official standard.” Lipowicz says.

Under law, participants in the Emergency Alert System (EAS), including broadcasters and emergency managers, will be required to be in compliance with the CAP 1.1 standard in 180 days after FEMA makes the standard official.

According to Lipowicz, FEMA officials will work over the next six months with its industry partners to iron out interoperability issues. During that time, FEMA and its partners will be developing specific formats, or profiles, for messages to be shared in the EAS.