Community Warning System A partnership of industry, media and the public to warn and inform our community in the event of an emergency

Second Edition Rev. July, 2006 An Integrated System for all Emergencies LARGE FIRES In the event of a large fire, emergency crews can use the Community Warning System to communicate with each other, with the public, with county officials, and with members of the media to keep everyone informed. CHEMICAL ACCIDENTS During a chemical accident, the Community Warning System is used to notify emergency centers throughout the county. The system simultaneously notifies emergency crews, the media and local schools and hospitals. Safety sirens near the accident site are also activated to immediately warn local residents to “Shelter, Shut & Listen.” EARTH QUAKES After an earthquake, the Community Warning System’s television, radio and media links can be used to provide residents with up-to-date local status reports regarding the availability of services, road conditions and resources throughout the county. COMMUNITY WARNING SYSTEM Together, these make up an all-hazard Community Warning System. Sirens are activated in the event of a chemical accident; the digital and radio communication links tie our county’s emergency services together to form one of the most sophisticated safety systems in the United States.

Second Edition Rev. July, 2006 The following Shelter-In-Place procedures are recommended as the best first response after the Safety Sirens are Sounded Siren testing is scheduled for the first Wednesday of each month at 11:00 a.m. For more information about the “Shelter, shut & Listen” response, call (925)

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Program History 1989 Non-profit Community Awareness Emergency Response (CAER) organization studies sirens installed at Dow Chemical plant CAER gets industry financial support for telephone notification system to augment sirens Accident at General Chemical in Richmond raises interest in an integrated Community Warning System (CWS) 1995 CAER awards contract for CWS development

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Program History 1998 CAER begins donation of CWS to County 2001 CWS transfer to County complete; operation assigned to Health Services 2003 Contract issues for expanded telephone emergency notification system (TENS) 2003 Operation of CWS moved to Office of the Sheriff Emergency Services Division for all-hazard use, with Health Services funding from hazardous material fees

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Current Capabilities 42 Sirens near major industrial facilities Countywide telephone notification system National Weather Radio Emergency Alert System Emergency Digital Information Service Travelers Information Radio Control terminals at key operations centers Staff notification system

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Current Challenges Telephone alerting system reliability Including business, wireless and network phones Streamlining control system Serving special-needs populations Improving warning message effectiveness Meeting all-hazard target capabilities

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff All-Hazard Alerting DHS “Target Capabilities List” (per HSPD-8): Members of the public receive prompt, accurate and useful information regarding threats to their health, safety and property… Performance Objectives: Time from incident to public alert < 30 min 90 percent of affected notified within 15 minutes

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Implications of All-Hazard Alerting Challenge to hazard-specific semantics: E.g., what does a siren mean? Variety of public attitudes and experience Multiplicity of alert sources and alert targets Communicating uncertainty Heightened need for corroboration as messages become more unexpected…

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff The Common Alerting Protocol An international standard data format (XML) for coordinating multiple alerting systems Adopted by DHS, NOAA, USGS, California Consistent message across all systems Precise geographic targeting Basic text plus multilingual and “rich media”

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff CWS Target Architecture CAP Server Console XMPP “Chat” Server Mapserver Text To Speech TENS Controller TENS Engine Wireless Sirens PPM Cable TV EAS Weather Radio California EDIS NOAA HazCollect Report Generator CWS Interface Phones Results Geocoding From9-1-1Data

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Other Projects Replacing telephone notification system Additional sirens using CAP, wireless technology Location-based alerting for wireless phones Improved telephone alerting capability New activation and coordination “console” Alert Translation Devices Contra Costa TV (cable) integration

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Ongoing Activities Technical system monitoring and maintenance Operator training and duty-officer support database geocoding Public education and outreach Industry and media liaison Inter-agency coordination Research and technology partnerships

Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Community Warning System 50 Glacier Drive Martinez, California (925)