PD Editorial: Another failure of the emergency warning system

Hawaii endured a “War of the Worlds” experience Saturday when millions of people received an official warning on their cellphones: “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”

Given the recent threats by U.S. and North Korean leaders to launch nuclear strikes, the apocalyptic text message from state emergency officials was more plausible than the Martian invasion of Orson Welles’ 1938 radio broadcast.

It was, we now know, an unfortunate blunder. Hawaii Gov. David Ige said a state employee pushed the wrong button.

The fact that it took 38 panic-stricken minutes to send a text correcting the mistake is further evidence of critical shortcomings in America’s emergency alert systems.

The Federal Communications Commission is promising a thorough investigation of the incident in Hawaii. That’s a welcome response, but a broader inquiry is needed to ensure that the alert system produces accurate, timely warnings.

As we have learned in Sonoma County and elsewhere in California over the past 14 weeks, vital warnings are leaving out too many people in the paths of wildfires, mudslides and other natural disasters.

When multiple fires erupted overnight on Oct. 8, emergency officials in Sonoma County said they didn’t consider activating the Wireless Emergency Alert system, which could have delivered a warning to practically every cellphone in the county. The reason: emergency managers feared that a widespread message would sow panic, resulting in traffic jams on roads needed by firefighters and other first responders.

They instead tried to send targeted warnings, using Nixle and SoCo Alert, email- and cellphone-based systems that require pre-registration, and reverse 911 calls.

But 54 percent of those calls didn’t connect, according to records released by the county.

Napa and Mendocino counties didn’t send wireless alerts either. The system was activated in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties during the December wildfires and subsequent mudslides, but emergency managers said those efforts also were hampered by technological issues.

Several factors have been identified, including limited registration with systems such as Nixle, fire damage to cell towers and utility lines and outdated phone lists. With nearly everyone carrying a cellphone, the potential benefits of timely text warnings is obvious. But an inability to accurately target messages hamstrings the Wireless Emergency Alert system.

The system, created in 2012, is the same one used to send Amber alerts for missing children. It is managed by federal agencies but operated by private cellphone carriers. The original rules didn’t require carriers to target messages any narrower than countywide. The FCC updated its regulations in 2016 in response to calls for better targeting, but a subsequent interpretation rule allowed carriers to continue sending messages on a countywide basis as the “best approximate” target.

For anything narrower, the Los Angeles Times reported, FEMA says carriers need not send targeted messages if the target area is less than the coverage area of a particular cell tower - a particular concern in rural areas that rely on “boomer” towers covering large geographic areas.

No alarm can be as bad or worse than a false alarm. For this system to be effective, the FCC must ensure that emergency managers and ordinary Americans can count on sending and receiving accurate, targeted and timely messages.