Senate Inquiry into Extreme Weather Preparedness

Frank Yardley from the NCCARF Emergency Management Network at RMIT University pointed out a Senate Inquiry into preparedness for extreme weather events. It invites submissions on the preparedness of major infrastructure, including telecommunications. My suggestion would be that as a matter of policy, the combination of the NBN and mobile phone networks should be made as reliable as the old PSTN was. This should not be just for voice calls but for data as well.

The old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) used underground cables and switching centres with backup power supplies. The system would therefore work during power failures, floods, cyclones, fires and other disasters. The NBN relies on mains power in the customer's premises to function. While there is provision for battery backup where a voice service is provided, many people will be using VoIP via the Internet, where no battery backup is provided. Also the fibre optic cable may be more vulnerable to damage, where it enters the customer's premises. Mobile mobile phone towers may be more vulnerable to damage in disasters.

Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System Issuing False Alarms

The Indonesia METEOROLOGICAL CLIMATOLOGICAL AND GEOPHYSICAL AGENCY (BMKG) has started issuing warnings online from the Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (InaTEWS). Unfortunately, InaTEWS is relaying bulletins issued from other regional warning systems. These bulletins are already relayed by UNESCO, so that multiple copies of irrelevant Tsunami warnings are received. As an example InaTEWS issued a bulletin about an earthquake near Nicaragua on 24 Oct 2012 at 0045 UTC. It would be a very long time, if ever, before this effected Indonesia, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Government Report Recommends NBN Use in Emergencies

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, released the 2011-12 Regional Telecommunications Review Report, 23 May 2012. The report includes recommendations for the use of telecommunications, including the NBN, following natural disasters. The report also calls for work to make the Emergency Alert service more effective on mobile phones. Also of note is that the chapter page images are by Robin Eckermann.

Emergency communications

The reliability of communications during emergency situations, especially mobile communications, is a major concern for people in regional areas. Recent natural disasters such as the Victorian bushfires and the Queensland floods have highlighted the importance of reliable communications.

There is a concern that many of the communications deficiencies which became clear in the aftermath of these disasters remain unresolved.

The telecommunications industry has a critical role in working with emergency service providers to understand how their priorities can be met and to ensure adequate communications services and strategies are in place.

Disaster management plans need to include a focus on communications and the full range of communication tools which can be used before and during a disaster to communicate with people in the affected area.

There is also a need for effective deployment of temporary telecommunications infrastructure in the aftermath of natural disasters. This infrastructure is vital to recovery efforts and should be a part of all disaster management plans. ...

2.10 RECOMMENDATION — Major telecommunications providers, such as Telstra, Optus and NBN Co, should work with local government emergency management planners to identify critical infrastructure priorities and communications challenges that could affect local emergency warning systems and emergency responses. ...

2.14 FINDING — The suite of telecommunications tools needed to contact people in emergency situations should be a key feature of both individual and regional disaster management plans.

2.15 FINDING — The effectiveness of the Emergency Alert to mobile phones initiative is limited by the mobile coverage in an area. Some peri-urban residential areas, popular tourist spots and highways do not currently have mobile phone coverage. This reinforces the critical importance of having a suite of communication tools to convey emergency warnings. ...

From: 2011-12 Regional Telecommunications Review Report, Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, 23 May 2012

Australian Disaster Information Smart Phone App

The Australian Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, launched a "DisasterWatch" for Apple iPhones and Google Android on 8 December 2011. The app provides information on "disaster events" using information provided by state emergency authorities. The application does not provide emergency alerts. Also there is no provision of this information via the web, or in any other format, only for iPhone and Android smart phone users.

The Australian Emergency Management Institute needs to improve this application by providing emergency alerts and also providing the same information via a web page and in other online formats.

A good first step would be to correct the errors in the Attorney General's Department Australian Emergency Management web pages. The AEM home page has 77 Errors in the HTML. It also scores zero out of 100 on the W3C mobileOK Checker, with 3 critical, 5 severe, 2 medium and 6 low failures.

Emergency Warning System for China

According to a report in the People's Daily newspaper, China has started work on a national public emergency warning to issue alerts within ten minutes ("China to build 10 min emergency warning system", Han Shasha, People's Daily Online,m 16:24, November 23, 2011). No technician details are provided, but it is likely that text messages via mobile phones will be used.

There have been problems experienced with prompt message delivery with the landine voice message part of the Australian Emergency Alert System. There have also been problems with formatting and addressing of the SMS based text messages. China should be able to learn from this experience.

One option might be to ring land-line phones with a distinctive cadence to alert citizens of an emergency. They could then turn on their TV, radio, or mobile phone for details. This would get around the problem of having to broadcast the voice message over the phone network, which is not set up for broadcast. This would also alert the citizens to an emergency situation, with them then in the frame of mind to receive the details.

Also use of cell broadcast for the delivery of text messages to mobile phones would be an option to consider. This gets around addressing and capacity problems, but still has some technical problems of its own.

Australian Emergency Alerting Standards

Anthony Baxter from Google Crisis Response is speaking at Creative Commons for You, and for Government, National Library of Australia in Canberra. He talked about the origins of Google's work with emergencies and new work. Essentially what Google does is provide a way to knit together disparate sources of official and other information in an emergency and make it widely available. He pointed out that having an open access license on emergency information it makes it easier to distribute it widely.

Anthony recommended the Australasian All-Hazards Symbology Project and Common Alerting Protocol, CAP Australian Profile (undergoing formal approval by OASIS). The All Hazards symbols are avialable in theAll Hazards Symbology Project Resources Kit (8Mbytes Zip file).


Anthony will also be speaking at GovCampNSW, in Sydney 19 November 2011. Perhaps he may have something to say about the Effectiveness of the Australian Emergency Alert System.

Google Crisis Response

Google Crisis Response has an interesting collection of uses of Google's products to help prepare for and respond to a disaster. For the 2011 Turkey Earthquake, Google have a Turkish language (and English) implementation of their Person Finder. There is also a using the Create an Emergency Plan template using a Google Docs template, based on the US Government's Ready.gov web site.

ps: in 2008 I visited the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, Bogazici University, which provides earthquake monitoring for the Turkish Government. A few days later I experienced a small earthquake myself.

Google Crisis Response in Canberra Friday

Anthony Baxter from Google Crisis Response will be speaking at Creative Commons for You, and for Government, National Library of Australia in Canberra Friday, 4 November 2011. He will also be speaking at GovCampNSW, in Sydney 19 November 2011. Perhaps he may have something to say about the Effectiveness of the Australian Emergency Alert System.

Australian Emergency System Capacity

An Assessment of the Effectiveness of the Emergency Alert Program was carried out by Torrens Resilience Institute, 30 July 2011. They found the Emergency Alert system achieved its purpose, with 83% of the people receiving messages. But this was contradicted by the report "Use of Emergency Alert during the Mitchell Hazardous Material Fire" released by the ACT Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Simon Corbell, in September 2011. This estimated that only 16% of residents received voice messages and 63% for text messages. Also the system was estimated to require several hours to send an alert to 80,000 residents, not the reuired 30 minutes.

Federal Government Rejects ACT Criticism of Emergency Alert System

The Australian Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, issued a median release "Australia's emergency alert system working well" (4 October 2011). This rejects criticism of the national Emergency Alert system by the ACT Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Simon Corbel. This followed problems with alerting the public to a fire in Canberra 15 to 16 September 2011. On the information available it appears that the federal position is the correct one. Problems were due to the ACT Emergency Services not using the emergency alert system correctly, rather than a failure of the system. The ACT Government needs to improve training and procedures for alerting Canberra residents to future emergencies.

Canberra Emergency News Alert Service

The ACT Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Simon Corbell, announced an Internet based emergency alert service for Canberra on 30 September 2011. The ACT Emergency Services Agency (ESA) will now provide information about emergencies via "ESA News Alerts" on the ESA home page, ESA News Alerts RSS feed, ESA Twitter account (@ACT_ESA); and
ESA Facebook account. Also there is an XML GeoRSS feed and ESA Incidents Map.

However, the minister's announcement did not address the problems which occurred with the formatting of text messages during a factory fire 15 and 16 September 2011. Poor formatting of the text messages cased confusion for the public. If the ESA is unable to correctly format a text message, then adding extra communication channels could compound the problem, adding to the confusion seen during the last emergency.

In addition the ESA web site failed an HTML validation test, with two errors. The web page scored zero out of 100 on the W3C mobileOK Checker, with three errors classed as critical. This could impede access to emergency information, particularly for people using mobile devices.

The ACT Minister for Police and Emergency Service needs to ensure that ESA has put in place procedures to ensure that clear and consistent messages are prepared for all communication channels and that the ESA web site meets technical standards.

Report on Use of Emergency Alert in Canberra

The ACT Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Simon Corbell, today released a report on "Use of Emergency Alert during the Mitchell Hazardous Material Fire". The eight page report notes problems with the system used to issue a recorded message to land-line telephones and SMS to mobile phones on 16 September 2011.

The minister's media release refers to the limitations in the national system, but does not deficiencies in the use of the system by ACT Government staff. In particular the text message contained the spelling errors Insadents for incidents.
Resadents for residents. Media reports indicated that as a result some of the public thought this was a hoax this is a well known issue with credible emergency communications. It is not clear why this failure in procedure was not picked up in the training and instructions issued.

The report notes that there are other means of issuing emergency messages, such as the web. However the report does not addresses the deficiencies in the ESA web site I noted on the day of the emergency.

Use of Emergency Alert during the Mitchell Hazardous Material Fire 16 September 2011

27/9/2011
Page 1

1. Background
Emergency Alert is a nationally coordinated telephony based warning system designed to send messages to the landline and mobile telephones of residents in a defined geographic area. The ACT is a partner in Emergency Alert and has established a capacity to use the system operationally in the ACT. Emergency Alert is not an “opt in” or “opt out” system, as it is based on the national telephone database of all Australian telephone providers.

Emergency Alert is operational, allowing messages to be sent to landline and mobile telephones in a defined geographic area determined by the billing addresses that occur in that area.

It will not provide messages to mobile phones within the target area that have billing addresses outside that area. Likewise, it will send messages to mobile phones outside the target area if their billing address is inside that area.

For the hazardous material fire at Mitchell, two Emergency Alert campaigns were run, and messages were issued. The commencement of messaging was at 0138 and 0319 on the morning of 16 September 2011 for the first and second campaign respectively.

This was the first operational use of the system in the ACT. Previous uses have been for testing only.

2. First use of Emergency Alert – 16 September 2011 – 0138 hours

2.1 The Messages

The first Emergency Alert was issued at 0138 hours on Friday 16 September 2011.

• The first voice message advised:
  
  Emergency. Emergency. The ACT Fire Brigade is responding to a Chemical incident in Mitchell. Residents are advised to evacuate the suburb immediately including the racecourse and EPIC. Further information is available via Canberra Connect, or go to www.esa.act.gov.au.
• The first text message advised
  
  Emergency. Emergency. The ACT Fire Brigade is responding to a Chemical incident in Mitchell. Residents are advised to evacuate the suburb immediately.

Spelling errors in the original text message are corrected above.

There has been criticism levelled at the ACT Government regarding the messages issued due to the
spelling errors in both messages issued via SMS. It is regrettable that this led to uncertainty regarding the origin and authenticity of the messages for some recipients.

Specifically, the following spelling errors were contained in the text message:

Insadents for incidents.
Resadents for residents.

The Emergency Alert System issues warnings via voice recording and SMS based on predefined templates for a particular emergency.

The template of the voice message requires words to be spelt phonetically by the originating agency to ensure that words will be pronounced correctly when automatically converted from text to voice by the system. However, this is not a requirement for warnings issued via SMS. This distinction was not taken into consideration at the time the Emergency Alerts were issued with the result that phonetic spellings were inadvertently copied into SMS messages.

2.2 Target Area

The Target Area was to registered billing addresses for mobile and landline telephones within the suburb of Mitchell including Exhibition Park (EPIC) and the Canberra Racecourse. The data provided in this report is based on information provided by the system manager on 17 September 2011.

Within this area:

22,598 landline services were identified. 1
2,693 mobile services were identified.
A campaign duration of 30 minutes was nominated.

Analysis of the Geocoded National Address File (GNAF) which is administered by the Public Sector Mapping Agency identified 1421 individual address points in the first target area, which is significantly less than the 22,598 landline services identified. This reflects the target area was largely commercial and industrial, and may include telephone exchanges. The ESA will raise with the system managers issues associated with the high proportion of landline services identified compared with the actual number of address points to potentially reduce the time required to send messages by the system.

2.3 Call Statistics

Of the 22,598 voice messages to fixed landline services identified in the target area:

5,851 (25%) of calls were answered.
2,375 (10%) of lines were identified as busy.
3,652 (16%) were not answered.
9,836 (44%) were invalid calls. 2
884 (4%) were fax lines.
NB: 22,598 (100%) of numbers were dialled.

Of the 2,693 mobile services identified in the target area3:

1,696 (63%) of text messages were delivered.4
895 (33%) of text messages expired.
58 (2%) text messages were undelivered.

3. Second use of Emergency Alert 16 September 2011 – 0319 hours
3.1 The Messages
The second Emergency Alert was issued at 0319 hours on Friday 16 September 2011.

• The second voice message advised:
  
  The ACT Fire Brigade is responding to a chemical incident in Mitchell. Residents of Franklin, Crace, Harrison, Watson, Downer, Kaleen, Lyneham, Hackett are advised to shelter indoors, immediately. If you are indoors, close all windows, doors, vents and turn off air conditioning. Further information is available via Canberra Connect, or go www.esa.act.gov.au.
• The second text message advised
  
  The ACT Fire Brigade responding to chemical incident in Mitchell. Residents of Franklin, Crace, Harrison, Watson, Downer, Kaleen, Lyneham, Hackett stay indoors.

Again, spelling errors in the original text are corrected above.

There has been criticism levelled at the ACT Government regarding the messages issued due to the
spelling errors in both messages issued via SMS. It is regrettable that this led to uncertainty regarding the origin and authenticity of the messages for some recipients.

Specifically, the following spelling errors were contained in the text message:

Insadents for incidents.
Resadents for residents.

The Emergency Alert System issues warnings via voice recording and SMS based on predefined templates for a particular emergency.

The template of the voice message requires words to be spelt phonetically by the originating agency to ensure that words will be pronounced correctly when automatically converted from text to voice by the system. However, this is not a requirement for warnings issued via SMS. This distinction was not taken into consideration at the time the Emergency Alerts were issued with the result that phonetic spellings were inadvertently copied into SMS messages.

3.2 Target Area

The Target Area was to registered billing addresses for mobile and landline telephones within the suburbs of Franklin, Crace, Harrison, Watson, Downer, Kaleen, Lyneham, Hackett and Mitchell.

Within this area:

86,801 landline services were identified.5
83,774 Mobile services were identified.
A campaign duration of 30 minutes was nominated.

3.3 Call Statistics

Of the 86,801 voice messages to fixed landline services identified in the target area:

13,784 (16%) of calls were answered.
2,690 (3%) were invalid calls.6
69,229 (80%) were not dialled.
1,098 (1%) were fax lines.

Of the 83,774 mobile services identified in the target area7:

52,700 (63%) of text messages were delivered. 8
26,740 (32%) of text messages expired.
3,049 (4%) of text messages were undelivered.

4. Analysis

In preparing the campaigns, there was an expectation that the alerts issued for the target area would be delivered within 30 minutes due to the nature and urgency of the incident. The system captured the identified areas and accepted the allocated campaign time nominated by the ESA. It was not until the results of the two campaigns were provided that it was identified that a significant number of phone messages and SMS messages were not delivered as the time specified for the system to dial all of the numbers with billing addresses in the target area proved to be too short. These are identified as “text messages expired” or “not dialled” fixed landline calls above.

While the system does identify the necessary time duration to complete a campaign, the system does not provide a warning to the operator that the proposed campaign is too short.

These matters were discussed with the managers of the system. With the size of the second campaign, it was estimated it could have taken 6-7 hours to complete – this would have finished sending messages around 9:00 - 10:00 am, well after the “shelter in place” advice had been lifted.

The system managers advised on a number of options that may assist in disseminating these advices:

a. Prioritise SMS messages by sending these prior to commencing fixed landline messaging;
b. Split the target areas into a number of separate campaigns, although this may not assist where the system is accessing a single telephone exchange to deliver the messages.

These issues did not arise in previous testing over relatively smaller areas. Testing undertaken on 7 June 2011 covered Dunlop and targeted 1573 fixed landlines and over 5000 mobile services. This test resulted in approximately 88% of landlines being answered and text messages sent to approximately 67% of mobile phones within 45 minutes.

Summary and recommended actions

Notwithstanding limitations arising from a discrepancy between the identified target area and the nominated campaign time, the Emergency Alert successfully provided warning messages to a significant number of people in the community that were acted upon.

Also, it is important to note that Emergency Alert is a single component of a comprehensive series of tools for alerting the community. The ESA’s systems for alerting the community to emergencies via the media and via the ESA website homepage were successful. This was demonstrated through local media resuming local broadcasting early on Friday morning. For example, ABC local media commenced broadcasting at approximately 2:00 am, compared with their normal commencement of local broadcasting at 5:30 am. In addition, the ESA with the assistance of ACT Policing used person-to-person notification in the early stages of the incident to warn those people who were staying at
EPIC when the incident occurred.

The wording and issue of any future alerts using the Emergency Alert System will be critically examined as part of the ACT Fire Brigade After Action Review for this incident. Pending outcomes of the review the ESA will undertake the following measures in relation to the future use of the system:

1. Additional training on the use of the Emergency Alert system to identified ESA staff;
2. Review of the internal procedures relating to the operation of the system, including quality assurance and authorisation processes;
3. Recognition that in future campaigns, the use of multiple and smaller campaigns may be more appropriate where a large number of voice and text messages are required to be delivered; and
4. The Emergency Services Commissioner will provide written feedback to the systems managers about the ACT’s experience of this operational activation of the system, including to suggest potential improvements in the operator’s interface, such as the provision of a “Red Flag” warning for circumstances where the size of the campaign exceeds the time nominated for delivery of the message.

It is also recommended that:

5. The ACT raise issues associated with the ACT’s operational use of the system in appropriate emergency management fora (including the National Emergency Management Committee and the Standing Council on Police and Emergency Management) at the next convenient opportunity.


1 The number of fixed landline phones for the first alert message was much greater than mobile services. In residential areas, there are generally a significantly higher proportion of mobile telephones to fixed landlines.

2 Numbers incorrectly identified due to customer’s records not being updated.

3 These figures are based on the campaign summary report provided by the systems manager and it is noted for the mobile services the “delivered”, “expired” and “undelivered” messages do not equal the total services identified. This
discrepancy will be raised with the system managers.

4 The system does not identify whether “delivered” text messages were opened and read by the recipients. Likewise, the system does not identify whether these mobiles that received the messages were inside or outside the target area at the time of delivery.

5 The number of fixed landline phones for the second alert message was similar to mobile services. As previously noted, in residential areas there are generally a significantly higher proportion of mobiles to fixed landlines. It is noted that the second campaign also included the area of Mitchell, which as shown in the first campaign, has a large number of fixed landlines relative to mobile phones.

Analysis of the Geocoded National Address File (GNAF) identified 37,017 individual address points in the second target area, which is significantly less than the 86,801 landline services identified. The ESA will raise with the system managers issues associated with the high proportion of landline services identified compared with the actual number of address points to potentially reduce the time required to send messages by the system.

6 See note 2 above.

7 See note 3 Above

8 See note 4 above.

Canberra Emergency Warnings About Factory Fire

The ACT Emergency Services Agency issued an emergency warning for Canberra at 11:52pm 15 September 2011:

Factory fire in Mitchell The ACT Fire Brigade is responding to reports of a large factory fire in Dacre Street at Mitchell.

Update to follow.

At 12:42am 16 September 2011 a second message indicated "Firefighters have been forced to move a few hundred metres back from the premises ..." and that "the business, Energy Service International (ESI), works with materials including oil from electricity transformers".

At 1:14am a third update advised "... ACT Fire Brigade has now ordered the evacuation of the whole suburb of Mitchell including a number of campers at Exhibition Park" and residents were advised to remain indoors.

At 2:27am "... Firefighters have been forced to retreat back from the fire following multiple explosions ...".

At 4:10pm the Emergency Alert system was used to issue a message to advise "residents within a 10 kilometre radius to remain indoors until further notice". Unfortunately I did not receive the message, although my mobile phone is registered within the danger zone (the system was last tested, 7 June 2011).

Media reports indicated that the warning message contained spelling mistakes and some residents therefore concluded they were a hoax. This is a serious problem which needs to be investigated after the current emergency is over. Such messages need to be composed from pre-prepared and tested templates, not ad-hoc. In 2003 one of my students investigated what was needed for credible emergency communications.

At 5:09am ACT ESA also commenced using Twitter as @act_esa with text messages summarizing the more detailed information on the ESA web site.

At 6:37am Update 11 reported PCB and Phosgene may in the smoke plume. But at 6:59am "ACT Fire Brigade have confirmed testing has resulted in no positive readings for Phosgene to date".

In June I suggested that ACT Emergency Services Agency needed to correct faults in their web home page. A quick test today shows that these faults remain. There a federal parliamentary inquiry into emergency communication networks is to report in November.

Queensland Floods Report Lacks Communications Strategy

The Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry Interim Report was released 1 August 2011. Several or the recommendations refer to the use of telecommunications for flood warnings, telephones, SMS, mobile phones, the Internet and the web. However, what is lacking from the Queensland response to the flood, and the report's recommendations, is an overall strategy for the use of telecommunications for disaster preparedness and response. The recommendations refer to different forms of telecommunications in different places, rather than an overall strategy of preparing clear messages and then issuing them via all available and appropriate communications channels.

Recommendations relating to telecommunications:

2.24 Seqwater should give consideration to posting information about current and future releases on its website during flood events as one method of ensuring accurate and timely information is available to the public.

3.6 Every local government should publish its disaster management plan (and relevant sub-plans) on its website before the next wet season.

4.2 Councils should prepare SMS alert templates covering a range of different flood scenarios before the wet season.

4.3 SMS alerts should direct recipients to websites or contact numbers providing more detailed information about flood locations and predictions, the location of evacuation centres and evacuation routes.

4.4 Councils and Emergency Management Queensland should work together to ensure the approval process does not cause delays in delivering SMS alerts.

4.18 Dam operators should assess the effectiveness of using SMS and/or email as a bulk instantaneous communication to all people on the notification list while individually contacting those whom it is essential to inform immediately.

2.19 Seqwater should ensure that all telephone calls within the flood operations centre are digitally recorded to create an accurate record of decision-making during major flood events.

4.23 Operators of dams should publicise, in a newspaper circulating in the local area and by posting a notice on its website every year before the wet season, the opportunity for local residents immediately downstream of a dam to be included on the existing notification list, and:

• consider whether an applicant for notification is so close to the dam that the warning time before water from the dam affects them is less than that available through the emergency management system
• consider whether they can be effectively notified by SMS or email
• if it is necessary to contact the applicant personally, agree with him or her a mode for that communication.

4.28 In rural and remote areas where telecommunications are not effective, measures that do not rely on internet and mobile telephone services should be implemented to inform the travelling public of road conditions ahead, for example:

• signs with detailed information
• providing tourist information centres and tourist radio stations with information on road conditions.

4.31 Councils should advise the Bureau of Meteorology of any information they possess about flash flooding (or the immediate prospect of it) likely to endanger life or property in their region, and of any warnings they issue about such flash flooding. The Bureau of Meteorology should consider in each case whether any such warning should be re-published (whether as a warning emanating from the Bureau itself or as attributed to the relevant council) on the Bureau’s website, or whether it should provide a link to any council warning or other information regarding flash flooding provided by councils or disaster management agencies.

4.32 Where the Bureau of Meteorology has information which leads it to anticipate flash flooding likely to endanger life or property in a specific area, it should publish a warning to that effect on its website.

5.45 That advice should be given using as many mechanisms as appropriate, including text message, radio and door knocking.

Sections of the report

The report is 266 pages. The Full report, is available as one 12Mbyte PDF file, or in sections:

Front matter:

• Letter of transmittal
• Table of contents
• Preface, Introduction
• Recommendations

Chapters:

1. Summary of weather and flood events
2. Dams
3. Disaster frameworks, preparation and planning
4. Forecasts, warnings and information
5. Emergency response
6. Essential services
7. Lockyer Valley and Toowoomba

• Appendices
  

1. Terms of Reference
2. Leave to appear
3. Glossary

Emergency Warning Systems Inquiry

John Hilvert reports that concerns have been raised in the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry over the adequacy of Australia's telephone and broadcast based Emergency Alert System ("Tempers flare over national emergency warning system" (14 June 2011, ITNews). There is also a federal parliamentary inquiry underway into "The capacity of communication networks and e to deal with emergencies and natural disasters" by the Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications.

In the past I have criticized reliance on a telephone based emergency warning system and on the arrangements for warning to be issuer through radio stations. Phone based warnings are issued as voice messages to fixed line phones and as text messages to mobiles. However, increased used of cordless phones and IP phones (which need mains power) reduces the effectiveness of fixed line phones. The sending of text messages to customers with a billing address in an area misses out on visitors. However, in practice the system has worked well in recent disasters.

The recent Queensland floods stretched the capacity of the telcos to continue providing a service and Telstra have made a submission to the Senate Inquiry on this. However, it is not clear if the new NBN based phone system will have battery backup.

There are also problems with messages sent through broadcast radio, with the procedures unclear and an uncertain communication path. Canberra startup Advance Alert, propose to automate this process with their with their Yellow Bird Alert system. This would operate in a similar way to the USA Emergency Alert System (EAS), which transmits warning messages from the US Government through broadcast radio stations to specially equipped receivers.

However, EAS is a techncially complex and expensive system and one which does not take into account "social networking" aspects of emergencies. Australia would be better off building a simpler system which would get messages to radio stations rapidly, without an automated interface.

National Telephone Warning System Test in Canberra

The ACT Emergency Services Agency (ESA) will test "Emergency Alert", the national telephone warning system, 7 June 2011, in suburbs of western Canberra. Landline telephones in the area will ring, when the householder answers, the Standard Emergency Warning Signal (SEWS) will sound, followed by a recorded message. Mobile phones with a billing address in the area will receive an SMS message with the same information.

There are limitations with this system, including that mobile phones registered outside the area will not receive the message. This is being addressed. One which still needs to be addressed is that people who are using the Internet, rather than conventional TV, Radio and telephones, will not receive the alert. An option needs to be made available for the emergency messages to be received via the Internet.

The ACT Emergency Services Agency (ESA) also needs to correct the numerous faults in their web home page. The page fails a web accessibility test for the disabled with 67 Problems (WCAG 2.0 Level AA). As an example, the main menu illegible when a large font is used. In addition, ESA needs to correct the 65 validation errors in the HTML code of their home page, 2 errors in the CSS and make their web site compatible with mobile devices. The home page scores 0 out of 100 on the W3C mobileOK Checker. ESA have failed to implement their we site in accordance with Australian law and are placing lives at risk as a result.

Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry

Justice Catherine Holmes, Jim O’Sullivan AC and Phillip Cummins commenced the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry today. Their Terms of Reference include the adequacy of equipment and communications systems. Written submissions are invited by 5.00pm, 11 March 2011. The final report is due by January 2012.

My postings on the January 2010 Australian Floods may be of interest to the commission. The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission contacted me about postings on emergency communications.

a) the preparation and planning by federal, state and local governments; emergency services and the community for the 2010/2011 floods in Queensland,

b) the performance of private insurers in meeting their claims responsibilities,

c) all aspects of the response to the 2010/2011 flood events, particularly measures taken to inform the community and measures to protect life and private and public property, including

• immediate management, response and recovery
• resourcing, overall coordination and deployment of personnel and equipment
• adequacy of equipment and communications systems; and
• the adequacy of the community’s response.

d) the measures to manage the supply of essential services such as power, water and communications during the 2010/2011 flood events,

e) adequacy of forecasts and early warning systems particularly as they related to the flooding events in Toowoomba, and the Lockyer and Brisbane Valleys,

f) implementation of the systems operation plans for dams across the state and in particular the Wivenhoe and Somerset release strategy and an assessment of compliance with, and the suitability of the operational procedures relating to flood mitigation and dam safety,

g) all aspects of land use planning through local and regional planning systems to minimise infrastructure and property impacts from floods,

h) in undertaking its inquiries, the Commission is required to:

• take into account the regional and geographic differences across affected communities; and
• seek public submissions and hold public hearings in affected communities. ...

From: Terms of Reference, Commissions of Inquiry Order (No.1)k, The State of Queensland, 2011.

Location Based Emergency Warnings to Mobiles

This week the Australian Government announced that the national emergency warning system, ‘Emergency Alert’, will be upgraded to deliver warnings to mobile phones based on the location of the handset:

... The ‘Emergency Alert’ system currently sends warnings by recorded voice and text message to landlines and mobile phones based on an owner’s billing address rather than the actual location of a handset at the time of a disaster or emergency.

This has meant that people caught in a disaster zone, who have a billing address outside the affected area, have been unable to receive the vital and potentially lifesaving warnings.

Following the Interim Report of the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission in August 2009, the Australian Government supported the Commission’s recommendation to implement a national warning system based on the location, in addition to the billing address, of a mobile phone. ...

From: Funding for location based emergency warnings, Joint Media Release, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Attorney-General Robert McClelland, Australian Government, 14 September 2010

In a disaster, such as a bushfire, the political level of government effectively ceases to function, with control being transferred to an emergency controller.

In the ACT the controllers is normally a police officer (ACT EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ACT 1999 - SECT 22). The chief minister just has to make the declaration in "writing" (Section 20), then have it broadcast by a television or radio station and published in the Gazette some time later (Section 21). The Chief minister could issue the declaration from their mobile phone and have it sent out via the Emergency Alert system.

Atlantic and Pacific Tsunami exercises under way

Tsunami exercise "LANTEX 10" commenced at midnight GMT today, with the first message sent by the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre. This is a scripted exercise to test tsunami response plans. LANTEX 10, simulates a magnitude 7.5 earthquake off the New England coast. Detail of the exercise, including the timeline of what is scheduled to happen when is available in the LANTEX10 Handbook Version 3.0.

There is also the corresponding Pacific exercise PACIFEX 10, simulating a magnitude 9.0 earthquake south of the Alaska Peninsula. Details are in the PACIFEX10 Handbook Version 3.0. In addition Alaska and California are conducting tests of their Emergency Alert Systems, including on TV and radio the same day.

It should be noted for those used to more free flowing exercises, as used by the UK and Australia, the US exercises tend to be more tightly scripted.

ps: Also note, as it says in all messages issued: THIS IS ONLY AN EXERCISE.

Commercial Emergency Alert Services

In the last day I have been contacted by two companies offering emergency alert services in Australia to governments, schools and companies. These are the Early Warning Network from Kerry Plowright's Look Here Pty Ltd and Emergency Contact from OnCall Messaging. These seem to have been promoted by the recent run of weather related emergencies in Australia. In theory the Australian state and federal governments now provide phone, text message and broadcast emergency warning services, but as I have detailed previously, these leave a lot to be desired, so there is room for commercial providers.