Stay informed with IPAWS

Debbie Snapp
ECB Publishing, Inc.

In times of crisis, the American people continually demonstrate resilience. Timely and effective emergency alert and warning messages can add to that resilience by providing information that citizens can use to make informed decisions and take action to save lives and reduce property losses, effectively reducing the impact of a disaster and speedy community recovery. Effective alerts and warnings can help prevent hazards from becoming disasters.
In Jefferson County, Paula Carroll, director of the Emergency Management Office, began using Everbridge (Nixle), a social network text messaging system that Jefferson County Sheriff's Office (JCSO) had already had access to. A more in-depth public broadcasting system that is used is IPAW (Integrated Public Alerting and Warning System).
IPAWS' primary use is to alert residents of emergencies such as prisoner escapes, missing persons, bomb threats, traffic incidents, road closures and in certain instances, even severe weather - all to serve the county better by bringing information to as many residents as possible, as soon as possible.
In 2006, then-President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13407: “Public Alert and Warning System.” According to that order, it is the policy of the United States to have an effective, reliable, integrated, flexible and comprehensive system to alert and warn the American people.”
The order required the establishment or adoption of appropriate, common alerting and warning protocols, standard terminology and operating procedures for public alert and warning systems.
In response, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) established (IPAWS) the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, a national alert and warning infrastructure available for use by local, state, territorial, tribal and federal public alerting authorities to send emergency alerts to citizens; and the Program Management Office (PMO) works to provide non-federal alerting authorities with the capability and resiliency that IPAWS offers and has produced this toolkit to provide information about how to become an effective IPAWS user.
Local, state, territorial, tribal and federal authorities may choose to use IPAWS and may also integrate local alerting or emergency response systems that use CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) standards with the IPAWS infrastructure. IPAWS provides public safety officials an integrated gateway to send alert and warning messages to the public using the EAS (Emergency Alert System), WEA (Wireless Emergency Alerts), NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) and other public alerting systems, all from a single interface.
Recognizing that well-trained users will make the best use of IPAWS, the IPAWS PMO provides and supports local public safety officials with online training, alerting best practices, testing and public education campaign tools and resources.
On that note, emergency management officials Paula Carroll and Kayla Kinsey, along with Jefferson County Fire Rescue Director Derrick Burrus and JCSO Director of Communications/E911 Joe Garrison were trained to adopt the common adopt the common alerting protocol and ensure communities understand how to access, use and respond to public alerts and warnings.
To participate and to receive severe weather details and updates and other pertinent information from the Sheriff's Office and Emergency Management via your cellular phone or email, you must have text messaging enabled on your phone to receive texts.
To receive IPAWS on your cell phone from the Jefferson County Alert System, text 32344 to 888777 or visit nixle.com on your computer and sign up with your cell phone number and or your email address. Standard carrier rates apply.
For more information about Nixle, contact Emergency Management at (850) 342-0211. You can also learn more about IPAWS by visiting fema.gov/ipaws.