What Is IPAWS? During an emergency, alert and warning officials need to provide the public with life-saving information quickly. The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) is a modernization and integration of the nation’s alert and warning infrastructure. IPAWS will integrate new and existing public alert and warning systems and technologies in order to provide Federal, State, Territorial, Tribal, and local alert and warning authorities a broader range of message options and communications pathways, thereby increasing the capacity to save lives and property. The IPAWS vision is to create an effective, reliable, integrated, flexible, and comprehensive system that enables the American people to receive alert and warning information through as many means possible. The IPAWS will provide Federal, State, Territorial, Tribal, and local alert and warning authorities the capabilities to better enable them to alert and warn their respective communities of all hazards impacting public safety and well-being via multiple communications pathways. The IPAWS will: * Create an interoperability framework by establishing or adopting standards such as the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) * Integrate with and provide Federal, State, and local alert and warning message access to multiple communications pathways to enable alert and warning messages to reach the public through as many means as possible * Partner with NOAA to enable seamless integration of message transmission through national networks. * Diversify and modernize the EAS * Enable alerts and warnings to be sent to those with disabilities and those without an understanding of the English language * Allow the President of the United States to speak to the American people under all emergency circumstances IPAWS Projects The IPAWS Program Office manages the implementation of IPAWS in several project areas. These projects include: Standards Project The Standards Project works with the alert and warning community of interest to develop the standards and protocols necessary to establish an interoperable federal infrastructure to meet the mission objectives of the IPAWS Program. The alert and warning standards and protocols will define the architectural interfaces between alert and warning systems. In its end state, the standards and protocols will allow non-proprietary, vendor-neutral industry products to interoperate to achieve an effective national alert and warning system-of-systems. The standards project accomplishes this vision by establishing a process for sustained practitioner and industry involvement and developing and publishing standards and protocols for new and emerging technologies. In addition, the Standards Project plans to establish a conformity assessment program to validate and verify vendor compliance to the published standards and protocols, a vendor liaison process for review of promising technical concepts, and a technology development process for maturation of promising technical concepts. IPAWS Aggregator The aggregator is the central services component of the IPAWS. The IPAWS aggregator will receive alert messages from validated authorized users, adapt messages as required, and pass the messages to the integrated dissemination systems that can deliver alert and warning information to the public. The initial public dissemination systems integrated with IPAWS will be the Emergency Alert System connections to radio and television broadcasters and a national interface to cellular service providers. Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) The Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) will allow alerting authorities to send imminent threat alert messages to the public via cellular broadcasting technology. Cellular broadcast technology enables an alert to be sent to any cell phone within range of a particular cell phone broadcasting tower. The public will be able to receive alerts and warnings on appropriately configured cellular phones and devices. The CMAS capability is different from existing subscription-based text messaging alert services currently available in some areas. The CMAS provides a capability to alert a cellular subscriber based upon his or her location at the time of the alert instead of based upon a home subscription address. The CMAS also utilizes different communications channels and protocols that decrease the risk of network congestion during emergencies. The cellular industry, the FCC, and DHS S&T are critical partners with FEMA in developing this new alerting capability. The CMAS is projected to have an initial operating capability in early 2012. Primary Entry Point (PEP) Expansion Project A Primary Entry Point (PEP) station is a radio broadcast station that is directly connected to FEMA communications systems to enable the broadcast of emergency information from the President to the public prior to, during, and after a national emergency. The national PEP stations are modified to provide a measure of resiliency in disaster scenarios. All FCC-licensed radio and television broadcasting stations are required to monitor a national PEP station and, in the event of a national emergency, interrupt programming to relay the information. This monitoring and re-broadcasting requirement means that a Presidential emergency alert would eventually reach all broadcast stations. . The PEP Expansion Project is expanding the number of national PEP stations in order to increase the direct broadcast coverage to over 90 percent of the total U.S. population. Geo-Targeted Alerting System (GTAS) The Geo-Targeted Alerting System (GTAS) Plume Modeling project is a developmental project in partnership with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The GTAS project is developing an application that can be deployed to Emergency Manager desktop systems to facilitate coordination with NOAA meteorological and environmental data sources and expertise to develop a toxic plume model and generate an IPAWS CAP alert message. This effort will enable the National Weather Service to predict the dispersion of a wide variety of airborne substances including chemical particulates, biological particulates, gases, and radioactive particles based on the characteristics of the substance, the current weather conditions, and known or estimated details of the release. Using established relationships between local National Weather Service Weather Forecast Offices and local emergency operations centers, GTAS will disseminate vital data to emergency managers in a quick, detailed, and user-friendly way to assist their mitigation and response plans and allow the emergency manager to generate and release public alert and warning messages. What Is FEMA’s Role? * FEMA is designated within the Department of Homeland Security to implement the policy of the United States for a public alert and warning system as it is outlined in Executive Order 13407, and FEMA has established a program office to implement the IPAWS. The IPAWS Program vision is to provide timely alert and warning to the American people to preserve life and property. To accomplish this, the IPAWS Program will provide integrated services and capabilities to local, State, and Federal authorities that will enable them to alert and warn their respective communities via multiple communications methods. Who are FEMA’s Federal IPAWS Partners? * Federal Communications Commission (FCC), http://www.fcc.gov * DHS Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate, http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/gc_1218474924792.shtm#15 * National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), www.noaa.gov/wx.html * National Weather Service (NWS), http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ * Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs for AMBER Alerts, http://www.usdoj.gov/ * Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC), http://jitc.fhu.disa.mil/testing.htmll Others Several public and private organizations are contributing to the IPAWS program, including the Society of Broadcast Engineers, National Association of Broadcasters, Association of Public Television Stations, International Association of Emergency Managers, National Emergency Management Association, Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), and Telecommunications Industry Alliance (TIA).