EAS Event Code Comments, With Deadlines Set, Get Some Early Filings
Even as comment deadlines on emergency alert system rules were set Monday, the FCC had already received some filings from EAS stakeholders. Comments on proposed changes are due Sept. 9, replies Sept. 24, in docket 04-296, the Public Safety Bureau said in Monday's Federal Register. The proposed rule changes follow a request by the National Weather Service that the FCC add three EAS event codes for extreme wind and storm surges, and that it revise the territorial boundaries of geographic location codes 75 and 77, which are offshore marine areas.
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The proposed new event codes are: Extreme Wind Warning (EWW), Storm Surge Watch (SSA) and Storm Surge Warning (SSW). The EWW code is aimed at clearing up some confusion that happened during 2004 Hurricane Charley, when the NWS issued an alert Tornado Warning code, as it was the only available code to warn of high winds, the FCC said. Meanwhile, SSA and SSW are aimed to better clarify wind and storm surge dangers than a Hurricane Watch/Warning does, the FCC said. The NWS also sought to revise location code 75, which covers the western North Atlantic, and 77, which covers the Gulf of Mexico, so that 75 ends at Ocean Reef, Florida, in the Florida Keys, instead of extending around the Florida coastline into the Gulf of Mexico and stopping at Bonita Beach, Florida; and so that 77 covers the U.S. Gulf Coast from the Mexican border to Ocean Reef instead of to Bonita Beach. According to the FCC, the NWS already uses the revised definitions of location codes 75 and 77, "which suggests a potential for confusion ... if the definitions for these location codes ... are not harmonized with NWS's usage."
The proposed new event codes faced some industry opposition. They "will not promote additional safety of life and property," EAS encoder/decoder maker TFT said in a filing posted Friday in the docket. While the public "would already be in an alerted state because of the hurricane event," the company said, the cost to implement such new codes on TFT equipment's erasable programmable read-only memory could be as much as two hours of a technician's time and up to $215. The existing 54 EAS codes cover "in adequate detail the occurrences that are likely to affect the public," TFT said. "They are both sufficiently broad and uniquely specific to convey a call to action for the general public." While the NWS indicated it has talked with a number of EAS encoder/decoder manufacturers and was told the time and costs involved in such changes would be negligible, "this is not the case with users of TFT legacy equipment," the firm said. It said revising geographic code locations will bring little benefit because few consumer devices are capable of detecting and decoding codes for the specific geographic areas.
The proposed rule changes should come with a firm one-year deadline for gear makers to either install software upgrades or replace EAS units that cannot be upgraded, the Broadcast Warning Working Group said in comments posted Monday. While "an undetermined number of original EAS devices" still in use can't be upgraded to comply with what's proposed in the NPRM, those devices need to be replaced anyway under the June EAS order (see 1506040056), BWWG said.