[sbe-eas] National FIPS Code

[Frank Lucia]

FCC Part 11 reads as follows:
 

§ 11.54 EAS operation during a National Level emergency.
(a) The EAS Operating Handbook summarizes the procedures to be followed upon receipt of a National level EAN or EAT Message.
(b) Immediately upon receipt of an EAN message, EAS Participants must:
(1) Monitor the two EAS sources assigned in the State or Local Area plan or FCC Mapbook for any further instructions. SDARS licensees and DBS providers may choose their two EAS sources, one of which must be a PEP station.
(2) Discontinue normal programming and follow the transmission procedures in the appropriate section of the EAS Operating Handbook. Announcements may be made in the same language as the primary language of the EAS Participant.
........

Therefore if EAN is in the message, actions must be taken as required in (b) and so on.
 

--- On Sun, 11/27/11, Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:


From: Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>
Subject: Re: [sbe-eas] National FIPS Code
To: "SBE EAS Exchange - a mail list for discussion about the Emergency Alert System and other emergency communication issues." <sbe-eas at sbe.org>
Date: Sunday, November 27, 2011, 9:49 PM


On Sun, 27 Nov 2011, Adrienne  Abbott wrote:

> The problem is that no one recognizes the "National" FIPS code, including

> the National Weather Service, the largest "consumer" of FIPS codes, as well

> as FEMA, the FCC and some manufacturers of EAS equipment...Entering multiple

> versions of something that doesn't officially exist won't make things any

> better.


The National Weather Service proposed adding the convention for the National FIPS code in 1997. Just like the "entire state of" codes don't technically exist in FIPS, NWS suggested adding "000000" as a "convention" in NWR/SAME and EAS. FEMA and the FCC also proposed using adding the convention "000000" for a national code.  If you read the comments on the FCC dockets, its was not the government objecting.

There will probably be similar problems discovered with CAP after it is deployed.  Will CAP also end up being "frozen," because of objections to
changing anything after the equipment is deployed?



> The search for a "National" code notwithstanding, when it comes to

> identifying a disaster location, FIPS codes are an outmoded, outdated, old

> technology. FIPS codes identify counties and they don't do you much good

> here in the West where some counties are bigger than entire eastern states.

> Years ago manufacturers and programmers of emergency management equipment

> started using postal zip codes as a way to identify disaster locations. And

> now as a result of better mapping technology, the tool of choice is the more

> flexible "polygon".


While polygons work may well for western states with mostly straight-line borders, there will probably be still be a need for conventions how to code state-wide (especially eastern states with irregular borders) or a national alert (the United States, territories, dependencies, etc is a very complicated, very long, disjoint set of polygons).

The goal isn't to be GIS experts, but understanding what conventions
emergency managers should use to maximize interoperability with various
alerting channels.


> The point is, we need to move EAS completely out of the Cold War mentality.

> CAP gives us a way to do that as long as we don't keep it anchored to old

> technology.


As long as we don't get stuck with CAP 1.x for 20 years.  All emegency partners need to recognize that things will change. They will need to
update their systems when things change.

FIPS 6-4 doesn't even exist anymore. How many EAS encoders/decoders are
updated with the most up to date state/country codes?
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/ansi/changenotes.html

If OASIS releases later revisions of CAP, will they be required changes?
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