RE Philadelphia emergency text messaging system [Telecom]

I have digital cable service from Time Warner. When they conduct an EAS test, it's actually the cable box that generates the alert. They send the EAS data to the cable box, and the box overlays it on whatever you happen to be watching.

This is a requirement for digital cable, at least for the big boys.

I have a TiVo Series 3 digital video recorder. It uses two CableCard devices to take the place of the cable company's box. In order to get CableCard certification, TiVo had to build in certain EAS functionality. For example, if you're watching something you had previously recorded when an EAS alert is issued, the TiVo pauses what you're watching and forcibly changes you to live TV, on a channel that's carrying the alert. The TiVo then displays the EAS message using its own character generator, just like a cable box. When the message is over, you can return to what you were watching. If the TiVo had been recording something when the EAS message came through, the recording will be interrupted due to the need to tune in to the EAS message.

I can't say I've seen an EAS test message on a non-broadcast channel that wasn't handled this way in the past year or so. Sending the message out-of-band to the cable box may leave out people with basic cable only, but for most cable customers it's more likely to get them to see the alert.

And the TiVo behavior may be a bit of a pain when they issue an EAS test during a season finale... but it makes a lot of sense in a real emergency.

You know, something struck me in all of this. What if you no longer listen to radio or watch television? I don't do either anymore, instead preferring net based video and podcasts.

Text messages to cell phones is the next best thing I suppose.

In the old days there sirens that would go off in an emergency. Citzens were supposed to tune to a radio station for instructions. This system peaked in the early 1960s for the cold war and was in decline since then. I wonder how many cities still bother to have the sirens. In Phila, they used to test them every Weds at noon.

Frankly, I think this is a very sensible approach. A network of powerful sirens is not expensive. (Now the sirens are electronic instead of mechanical.) Plenty of people aren't 'connected' in any way. In conjunction with sirens, broadcast radio and TV, cable TV, and newer media could provide specific instructions. I think almost everybody still has a basic AM radio.

As an aside, it was Bell Labs that developed highly efficient LOUD sirens during WW II for civil defense use. Some were so loud they caused hearing damage.

Many people have block receipt of text messages.

The FCC seems to agree according to recent news articles.

The problem with these systems is that sooner or later, they all get used for messages that are not emergencies.

The advantage of the siren is that they can be used to send only one message. They cannot be used to remind people to pay their taxes on time or to make sure they leave their recycling by the curb on Tuesdays.

--scott

I think sirens and other "alerting" plans went by the wayside because the various governments involved finally figured out that it's impossible to move any large number of people in time to avoid any major catastrophe that's not several days away.

It's possible to warn people about hurricanes, but not tornadoes or nuclear war: there's just too much inertia in the public's reaction.

My personal opinion is that the whole "civil defense" infrastructure was just part of a psychological warfare game designed to keep Americans scared about "The Big Red Menace" so that they wouldn't complain about their taxes. My impression of the stories that came out of the former Soviet Union after its collapse were that the "threat" really was just "painted rust", as many defectors had said. Too bad the TV networks didn't have the courage to expose the truth, then or now.

Of course, that's my opinion, and YMMV.

In a small Oregon coastal town the City Fathers realized that years and years of blowing the sirens every Wednesday at noon has made the people "deaf" to the sounds. They believe most people just "tune out" the sirens and won't pay attention to them if a real emergency cropped up. (They're worried about Tsunamis advancing on the town from the Pacific Ocean). So they've decided to retire the siren system and begin using an aircraft with a powerful public address system to warn people. (Talk about a crazy scheme! what happens during bad weather and the plane can't fly? What about when the pilots aren't around? What about when the plane is down for maintenance?) Anyway, that's what they've decided!

Al

***** Moderator's Note *****

My brother told me that Maryland no longer uses fire watch towers: they figured out that they could do the job with aircraft, and that when the aircraft can't fly due to weather, there's not enough danger to worry about.

Of course, a tsunami could come in any weather, but the same problem applies to that as to many other cataclysms: the odds are that people rushing around in a panic, trying to get away, would fare worse than if they'd remained in their homes.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or I may never see it. Thanks!)

You don't need sirens for hurricanes, because pretty much everybody knows a day or so ahead of time. But tornadoes happen in minutes. I live in tornado country (Minneapolis) and they use sirens for that here. You don't need time to load the car and leave town, you just need time to get into a protected area away from the windows and falling trees, such as the basement. Though actually, when the sirens blow mostly people turn on their radios or TVs to see where the action is. There will be few real alerts every year.

Sure. Just like today. It's not just about taxes, it's about power. But there really are tornadoes.

Dave

So true. We have a mini-alert telephone relay in our condo and they use it for routine stuff when it's supposed to be for urgent stuff.

Actually, they went away because the Cold War threat is gone and there are no reminders or education about the sirens. Back in the 1960s every household and business was given yellow placards with instructions on what to do. IIRC, there were two different siren codes with different responses. Simply taking some kind of cover (e.g. going into the house and down the basement) increased one's chances of survival in an attack.

They did not think about mass evacuation because in the age of missiles there would not be time for that.

In the distant past evacuations for hurricanes was done in sparsely populated shoreline communities. Unfortunately today the communities are much larger and the logistics all the much tougher.

As mentioned, in tornado zones, sirens are used, and people are trained to seek appropriate shelter and do. Sometimes the storm hits too quickly for warning, or hits flimsy housing and destroys it with loss of life.

If people are properly educated and trained they will respond. Back in the 1950s and 1960s people were trained for nuclear war. People think that a nuclear bomb wipes out everything, that is not true. Ground zero is wiped out, but the fringe areas will survive if people are sheltered. (At Hiroshima, they thought the bomber was a weather plane; had they been in shelters casualties would've been reduced.)

The Soviets did have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them in the 1960s. To be survive in the Soviet system, a leader had to be treacherous and ruthless. Many Soviet officials of the 1960s started out as disciples of Stalin and his purges and aggression in the

1930s. Not warm and fuzzy types, nor the kind to lose sleep at night over killing people, including their own. They saw as the mandate and birthright the Marxist plan to rule the world by any means possible*. They were reared in a system that taught hatred and mistrust of the U.S. and they felt that. After the collapse it was revealed we came a lot closer to nuclear war, particularly during the Cuban crisis, than people realized. Mao was just as evil as Stalin, though China's offensive capability came along later.

Getting back to telephones, as a result of these crisis they set up a direct communications line between the US and USSR popularly known as the "Hot Line". It was actually a teleprinter system, not a voice phone.

Ironically, Americans found it objectionable that phone calls to the Soviet Union were always monitored by the KGB. Now, the FBI/NSA monitors overseas calls and that's ok. Hope you're not arranging a hooker, 'cause they're gonna get you like they did Spitzer.

• A good book that describes this is "I Chose Freedom" by Victor Kravchenko, who was a Soviet defector to the U.S. Subsequent well known books about the Gulag and the opening of the archives confirmed everything said. Richard Rhodes' second book on nuclear arms, "Dark Sun", also made great use of archives and filled in blanks from his first book. It is a hard fact that the Soviets were dangerous. What is debatable is what the proper U.S. response should've been to that threat, but that is beyond our scope here.