Only twelve days before a wildfire threatened residents near Boulder, CO, the city completed an upgrade to its Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system. As KUSA-TV reported, the potentially dangerous situation put the upgrade to the test as officials sought to warn cell phone users in the danger zone. In a perfect world, all units within the target area would receive the message, but the fire alerts for the region’s wildfire dubbed “NCAR” have identified some problems with the system.
On the positive side, many people did receive news of the fire outbreak near the National Center for Atmospheric Research and safely evacuated. There has been no loss of life reported.
On the downside, the WEA technology was imprecise in some cases and may have confused some recipients. Dispatch center director, Brad Riggin, explained that the intention was to send the alert to a specific area that was imperiled. “It definitely overshot our polygon by quite a bit depending on the age of your handset and the technology you had,” he stated. People outside the immediate area may have received a general danger alert even though their location was not dangerous.
“It did hit the area that we intended it to,” said Richard Atkins, emergency manager of Chaffee County. “Yes it went outside the area … and the more and more we can educate our public on the limitations and the issues with WEA – they’re more understanding,” reported KUSA-TV.
Local emergency authorities initiate the WEA alerts through FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, which has evolved from 90-character messages to up to 360-character messages. Older phones may be limited in their capacity to receive longer messages.
Atkins was surprised to discover that people within the targeted polygon got the full message while those outside the perimeter received a vague warning. “The limitations of the system were shown,” agreed Riggin.
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