IPAWS Best Practices for Emergency Officials
Training, testing and practice are essential to effectively launch IPAWS alerts when a critical event strikes. Start by creating an IPAWS user policy to make procedures crystal clear and verify all personnel review it. Follow these tips to ensure everyone stays on track, while preventing misuse and over-alerting:
1. Conduct Regular Testing. Include a periodic testing requirement for all users to stay fresh and up to date on the three alert pathways. Conduct monthly proficiency drills with your staff, dispatchers and anyone else involved in launching IPAWS messages. Rehearsals should be conducted exclusively in the test track, following the parameters for each alert pathway.
Practice using the codes and writing messages within the prescribed character limits. The CodeRED IPAWS software allows users to practice within the test track, which is a great feature for building familiarity and dispelling fears of complexity. During drills and practice, always confirm the test messages include “TEST – This is only a Test Message – TEST.”
2. Construct Messages Clearly. When crafting alerts, remember they should be brief and instructive. It’s important to create templates in advance to streamline your alerting process. When an emergency happens, you can fill in the blanks and make tweaks where needed, rather than starting from scratch under stress. The CodeRED IPAWS tool can help you build templates, and you can also monitor the national alerts feed to see how other agencies are constructing messages.
3. Coordinate Locally. This cannot be emphasized enough. Interagency cooperation and communication are the basis for effective alerting. A checklist can help your local counterparts supply the details for alerts. A standardized form for the uniform gathering of information should outline all of the details to create a given alert. This will prevent delays and confusion caused by going back and forth to obtain the necessary information.
4. Maintain Records and Statistics. To utilize actionable intelligence from all three alert pathways, ensure you’re preserving data for analysis. All outcomes should be tracked and recorded to create statistics to serve as a basis for recommendations as new cases develop. This includes, but is not limited to, the details of search and rescue missions, such as the average length of time to locate missing persons and average geographic span of search grids in cases of successful recovery.
5. Leverage Technology. WEA messages to cell phones can now include hyperlinks, so recipients can click for more detailed information, such as posters, photos and ongoing updates. The content can then be texted and posted on other platforms and community pages. This helps to engage and empower people during critical events while simultaneously preventing frustration caused by alerts containing only enough information to be frightening.
Most agency websites can’t handle the extreme increase in traffic resulting from a hyperlink, but technology can help overcome this. One agency was able to work with Twitter to set up a unique alerts page on which everyone can see all of the information available via the hyperlink, without subscribing to the app. This helps to allay concerns over tracking of government app usage, which has caused people to miss important alerts.
6. ALWAYS use every tool in your toolbox for maximum success in meeting your emergency alert and warning needs!
