Common Alerting Protocol: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 05:14, 11 June 2005

Revision as of 23:09, 12 June 2005

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Warning systems in the [[United States]] today are a chaotic patchwork of technologies and procedures. Not only is there no coordination, there's no mechanism for coordination.

Existing nationwide systems are limited in scope both by their technological legacies and by the organizational mandates and priorities of their sponsoring agencies. In particular, none of the existing national systems are entirely suited to the needs of state, local and private emergency-information programs. As a result, dozens of different technical and operational warning systems have sprouted, seemingly at random, throughout the nation6nation. As we previously stated, the public expects rapid and accurate emergency warning, and they want all the various information technologies to be used to broadcast the warning. The chief benefit of CAP will be reduction of costs and operational complexity by eliminating the need for multiple custom software interfaces to the many warning sources and dissemination systems involved in all-hazard warning. The CAP message format can be converted to and from the “native” formats of all kinds of sensor and alerting technologies, forming a basis for a technology-independent national and international “warning internet.”

In addition to pushing emergency data to its various warning devices, the protocol also creates a capability that allows sensors of various types (water levels, chemical detectors, wind sensors) to feed data to decision makers in a format that can be easily displayed on a computer-based situation map. An example of this capability is the Emergency Digital Information System (EDIS) used in California. An independent developer has deployed an EDIS Alert Monitoring software application that displays the various EDIS messages on a state map. Based upon the geographic information and type of warning message issued, the software draws a polygon on the map showing the affected area. By feeding information from CAP based sensors into the system, emergency manager can obtain near-real-time data and have it automatically displayed on the situation map. An example might be capturing the river level data from the California Data Exchange Center and, when river levels reach a specific level of concern, an icon appears on the map. By clicking on this icon, you’re able to read the data message from the sensor.