Workshop to Promote Wider Use of the Emergency Alert System

The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hosted this workshop to promote the wider use and increased accessibility of the Emergency Alert System (EAS).

As part of the FCC’s continuing commitment to ensure that emergency alert and warning systems are effective and available to all Americans, the workshop explored two key issues: (1) how to improve the usefulness of the EAS for emergency managers at the state and local levels (e.g., Emergency Operation Centers, Public Safety Answering Points, Police, Fire and Emergency Medical Services), and (2) how to improve the accessibility of alerts to people with disabilities. In particular, the workshop discussed methods to empower and encourage state and local emergency managers to utilize the EAS and Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) systems more widely for localized alerts and exercises. The workshop also addressed the accessibility of EAS visual messages, including the technical feasibility of improving the synchronicity of EAS audio with the EAS visual crawl and the readiness of Text-to-Speech (TTS) technology for increased usage in national and local alerting.

For additional information about the meeting, please contact John A. Evanoff, Attorney-Advisor, Policy and Licensing Division, PSHSB at (202) 418-0848 or via e-mail at john.evanoff@fcc.gov.

Related Materials

• Public Notice
• Detailed agenda, including names of panelists and speakers. Word | PDF