The Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) Alliance is working with TV broadcasters and local alerting authorities to deploy an emergency warning capability that uses the ATSC 3.0/NextGen TV transmission standard, delivering more accurate and multimedia-enabled emergency messages to residents.
AWARN is an international coalition of broadcasters, consumer electronics makers, B2B tech companies, and trade associations that seeks to promote the adoption of the ATSC 3.0/NextGen TV standard to greatly improve public alerting and informing. The organization is creating a framework of best practices for a next-generation emergency messaging system, including a “network of networks” built on ATSC 3.0 as a resilient technological backbone, while harnessing innovation, synergistic workflows, and input from diverse community stakeholders.
According to AWARN executive director John Lawson, the disaster in Maui, the deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history, is yet another sad reminder of the need to upgrade the nation’s emergency alerting and information systems. Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez is launching an examination into the authorities' response to the wildfires, including apparent alerting failures. During the previous most-deadly wildfire, the Camp Fire in 2018 that destroyed the town of Paradise, California, and killed 85 people, nearly 82 percent of the town’s population never received an emergency alert from any of the town’s alerting systems, according to Paradise by Lizzie Johnson.
By using the ATSC 3.0 over-the-air transmission standard, emergency managers will be able to provide warnings to residents in multiple languages. And instead of plain text, they can show multimedia elements, including storm tracks, evacuation routes, shelter locations, and flood inundation maps, providing residents with more information and enabling them to take quicker action. It also has the capability to send localized, geo-targeted messages that will be received only by the people who are likely to be affected by the emergency. This minimizes the chance of false alarms, which desensitize people to the emergency message and make them more prone to ignoring it, even when there is a legitimate emergency.
Small, battery-powered devices like this prototype from 6G.Datacast.tv can receive geo-targeted, rich media emergency messages delivered by NextGen TV stations running on back up power and run them on TV’s and smartphones in the home, thus creating a lifeline when cellular networks fail and the electric grid is down, as often happens in emergencies.
Lawson adds that the new standard will allow the residents to receive the messages on battery-operated devices because TV stations operate independently of the cellular network and often have backup generators. This is important because wireless networks and the electric grid often fail in wildfires, as they did in Maui, as well as hurricanes, floods, and ice storms.
Residents who have NextGen TV-enabled TVs, set-top boxes, or mobile devices will be able to receive emergency messages. Dedicated battery-operated receiver devices are currently in development, which will be extremely valuable during large-scale emergencies.
This year, AWARN is partnering with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and Sinclair Broadcast Group to pilot Advanced Emergency Information using ATSC 3.0 in the National Capital Region. Currently taking alert messages from Arlington and Fairfax Counties in Northern Virginia, Sinclair is working to integrate the messages with the existing newsroom workflow at WJLA-TV, which can enhance the county alert messages with additional content. The pilot program will be expanded to more jurisdictions in the coming months.
Media contact:
Name: John M. Lawson
Email: [email protected]
