Edward Plumb: Okay, well, hello everyone, and welcome to today's panel discussion. My name is Ed Plumb, and I'm the Weather and Flood Hazard Specialist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness. And we're also called ACCAP, and I'll be the facilitator for this discussion today. Thanks so much for everybody, joining in this morning, we really appreciate it. This event is being held in the International Arctic Research Center on the University of Alaska Fairbanks Troth Yeddha' Campus. ACAP is part of the RESET program, which is funded by the NOAA Climate Program Office. ACCAP has been working here in Alaska for over 16 years to improve the ability of Alaskans to adapt to a changing climate.

So, a few quick logistics before we get started. Everyone except for the panelists have been muted, and your video will be turned off during the panel discussion. I will allow you to unmute yourself and turn on your video during the Q&A if you want to ask questions directly to the panelists. Feel free to submit questions at any time into the chat. And we'll do our best to get to as many as we can during the Q&A session. This webinar is being recorded, and the recording will be posted on the ACCAP website. I'll also send a follow-up email with the recording link and a list of resources for signing up for alerts in Alaska. So we'll start with a short introduction to our panelists, and follow that up with a panel discussion that'll last about 40 minutes. And then we'll leave some time at the end for questions. And as I mentioned, feel free to drop questions into the chat as we go along. We'll try to answer them as they come in, but if not, we'll get to them at the end of the panel discussion. Alright, let's go ahead and get started.

Today's topic is something that really affects Alaskans, and that is emergency alerts and messaging. Whether it's some sort of severe weather, flooding, wildfire, tsunami, or other sort of hazard. Getting timely alerts can make all the difference when every second counts. Over the past year, events like ex-Typhoon Halong and also the devastating floods down in Texas have really highlighted how critical alerts are for protecting lives and communities. And here in Alaska, we've been hearing from folks across the state asking. You know, example, how do I get alerts? Where do I sign up for them, and which one should I be paying attention to? Of course, Alaska is unique, and many of our communities are geographically isolated, or don't have the same alerting infrastructure you might see down in the lower 48. So getting those reliable and timely information… getting that reliable and timely information out to people isn't always that straightforward.

Before we get started, I would like to, introduce our panelists today. First off, we've got Nancy Durham. is the Emergency Manager and Emergency Operations Center Director for the Fairbanks North Star Borough. She leads preparedness, public outreach, and emergency alerting efforts with over 20 years of government service. Mark Roberts is Chief of Operations for the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. He leads the State Emergency Operations Center and serves as the State Incident Commander during disasters. And brings over 30 years of emergency services experience. Mark has worked through an accountable number of incidents and disasters in Alaska during his tenure. Dennis Bookey is the broadcast chair of the Alaska Emergency Communications Committee, and a long-time radio leader. Helping ensure emergency alerts are effectively delivered through broadcast systems. Aviva Braun is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Anchorage. Aviva works to improve weather communication and outreach across South Central Alaska to Bristol Bay and out into the Aleutians. Especially for rural and Indigenous communities. And finally, we have Dave Snider. And he is the Tsunami Warning Coordinator at the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, where he focuses on communicating tsunami hazards and coordinating real-time response efforts, not only here in Alaska, but also in the Lower 48 and Canada. I do want to mention, before coming to ACAP, I recently retired from a long career with the National Weather Service here in Alaska, and I had the opportunity to work closely with all of today's panelists, and I'm super grateful that they're here to share all their knowledge with us. This is an incredibly experienced and dedicated group of folks, and I'm excited you could all come today and share what you know and what you've learned about emergency alerting in Alaska.

I also want to acknowledge that there are other important learning authorities in Alaska that aren't represented on today's panel. This includes the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope Department of Emergency Management up in Utqiagvik, which is the only Tribe in Alaska with FEMA Emergency Alerting Authority. I'd also like to mention the Marine Exchange of Alaska. It's a… they are a 24-7 operation based in Juneau that is dedicated to saving lives, protecting property, and safeguarding the environment by helping prevent maritime disasters. In the future, I hope to highlight both of these organizations in a future webinar or discussion, as they play a critical role in protecting communities on the North Slope, and then also across all of Alaska's marine waters. So with that, we're about ready to start the panel discussion here.

So, I have 5 questions for our panelists, and they will, answer these over the next 40 minutes or so. And then after that, we'll open up the floor for questions and answers from the audience. And as I mentioned, go ahead and start… if you have any questions that come up while they're talking, just drop them in the chat. We'll try to get to them in the chat, or we'll bring them up during the discussion at the Q&A. At the end of the, panel discussion. All right, so my first question is going to go to Nancy. So, Nancy, As the Borough Emergency Manager. You see firsthand how communities in the Fairbanks North Star Borough rely on emergency alerts. Why are emergency alerts important… so important here in Alaska, and what recent events have highlighted their value? The floor is all yours, NC.

Nancy Durham: Thank you, Ed. Emergency alerts and warnings are very important to all Alaskans. It gives us the time to evacuate our homes, or it tells us how to shelter in place, or what we need to do during a disaster event. We've used… We had a heavy wildfire season in 2025, where we used, a lot of emergency warnings in such a short period of time. Which, then you get concerned about the fatigue. of alerts and warnings, but wildfire season popped off so fast, and in so many different areas, we had to push out a lot of warnings to get people out and keep them safe. That's our biggest, area that we do warnings, for. We also have other warnings that we issue within our jurisdiction for hazardous activities, like bomb threats or road conditions, accidents, to stay out of these areas. So there's different types of alerts at different levels to go out to keep the community safe and to keep our first responders safe as well. Back to you, Ed.

Edward Plumb: Great, thanks, Nancy, I appreciate that answer, and so, Mark, curious… Same question, I'll repeat the question for you. Why are emergency alerts so important for Alaska, and what recent events have shown us about their value? So, Mark, can you give kind of the statewide perspective? Nancy gave the borough perspective, but you oversee the entire state of Alaska.

Mark Roberts: Sure. I want to emphasize one thing to begin with, and that is all the solutions For alert and warning are not technological. So there's a variety of tools available to us in technology, everything from a wireless emergency alert that sets off cell phones, which we try and reserve very carefully. It's the Amber Alert tone. We try and reserve that very carefully in the state of Alaska, the immediate life safety things, like Amber Alerts, a kidnapped child. or a tsunami warning, or a fire evacuation. You can move down, and continue into the emergency alert system, which Dennis will talk about, which is radio and TV broadcast. down to… 511, makes all sorts of proprietary systems that send email. Text, or, make phone calls. But often in remote communities, it is door-to-door. It is riding around on your Honda, knocking on the door, picking up someone. It may be a local siren, it may be an announcement at the washateria. So our state is kind of interesting in that it has very urban areas. like I'm in right now, the Municipality of Anchorage, it has all those tools available in very remote areas, which was some of the ones that, on ex-Typhoon Halong were impacted, like Kipnuk and Kwig. That caused, really devastating damage and required folks to evacuate, and that was many neighbors helping neighbors. So, I just want to emphasize that when we talk about alert and warning, there's individual, family, community, local jurisdiction, and statewide responsibilities, and there's a number of tools that may come into play. So, second part of your question was, most recent things. We have, alert and warning responsibilities statewide to support local communities when they don't have the capability, or in the unorganized borough, particularly in unincorporated communities. So, we were involved in alert warning during the fires Nancy mentioned in the Denali Borough. and extending up the Parks Highway in between the Denali Borough and the Fairbanks North Star Borough, supporting those fire evacuations and making alert morning for that. We just exercised yesterday our full alert warning procedures, with the exception of our live code for tsunami warnings. and we do come to the point during a tsunami warning, in conjunction with Dave Schneider and the National Tsunami Warning Center, we come to a point where we're actually making physical phone calls to all the communities under warning to make sure the warning's understood, find out what their actions are, establish positive contact, and be ready for any impacts that follow up. So there's quite a range of everything from, like the municipality of Anchorage or the MatSu Borough could issue one for an active shooter, clear up to a tsunami warning or an evacuation like that. I think that's a good summary, kind of response to your question for now, Ed, and I can follow up later as we get into this.

Edward Plumb: Thanks, Mark. It's… Very multi-layered, and a lot of, you know, from very official channels of reporting, or sending out messages, and emergency messages down to, you know, the neighbor going and knocking on the neighbor's door, depending on the community you're in. Well, Aviva, I'd like to toss that question to you, just, maybe sort of from the weather hazard angle. I know you do tsunamis too, but we've got Dave here, the tsunami expert. So, yeah, what would you like to share, Aviva?

Aviva Braun: A lot of… a lot of it has already been mentioned, but what I will add is that, alerts allow us to disseminate information about life-threatening weather. in a quick manner. So it allows us to… to give the opportunity to people to protect, when they need to take those protective actions, in… in short duration periods of time. So. Alerts give us that opportunity to fulfill our mission, which is the protection of life and property.

Edward Plumb: Okay, thank you, thank you, Aviva. Dave? From the Tsunami Warning Center perspective.

Dave Snider: Yeah, thanks, Ed, and good morning to everybody. You know, alert and warnings for us serve that purpose of providing that instant notification for a no-notice event, right? We can't predict earthquakes, we cannot predict tsunamis that occur from earthquakes or any other events that are causing tsunamis today. So we have to let people know right away to get people out of harm's way, and hopefully protect their assets and property in that process. But in that process, then, it immediately moves into understanding, believing, personalizing that information, deciding what to do, and then searching, confirming, and reconfirming over and again. As part of that public awareness and communication process to reduce milling, because what we do know is when we send those alerts, people then have to go through that process, and it's not a fast process, and that creates risk to keeping people safe. So, for me, the most important things that we can do during this process is reduce confusion. alert people that need to be alerted, and the opposite is also true. Don't alert people that don't need to be alerted. And that reduces complacency, and also improves that communication expectation for the next time, and the next time, and the next time. So, it's a very complicated process, but for us, that alert and warning is the beginning of a very public… Communication sequence that is designed to get people out of… out of the way for a no-nose event.

Edward Plumb: Thanks for sharing that, Dave. And Dennis, any comments? I know you… you work in the broadcasting side and aren't actually issuing the warnings, but I'd be interested to hear your perspective.

Dennis Bookey: We're just… we're the end… we're the very end of the chain, and the decisions, you just heard how they're all inputted, decided upon, and it's an automated process, and, to kind of add to what Mark said, it's a warning, but it goes far beyond that, because what broadcasters carry is limited to only 2 minutes, and there's only a fair amount of text on a phone, too. So… From there, everybody's got to get more information, including the broadcast industry, and we'll talk more about that in a little bit.

Edward Plumb: Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Dennis, especially since a lot of these messages are very short length, and you have to get… try to convey your information in a very, you know, in a certain number of characters. And having worked as a meteorologist, I like to be very expressive and talk about why… what's causing the hazard, but that's not exactly what is needed in the moment when you're sending out an alert message. Alright, we're gonna move on to, our second question. This one is for you, Aviva. And… So, Aviva, from the National Weather Service perspective. What hazards are Alaskans most likely to receive alerts for? And why are alerts issued for some hazards, but not others?

Aviva Braun: Yeah, so, from the National Weather Service, perspective, we want to alert and warn people for everything weather-related, so people can take protective actions for both themselves, their community, their family. The ones that are short-duration alerts that were… that we're focusing on are those short-duration, immediate threats to life and property warnings. And for Alaskans, the most common ones that we're going to see are ones like. Tsunami warnings, dam break, flash flooding, those are the ones that are immediate threats to life and property. There's a number of other ones that are, used across the National Weather Service. They don't… really affect, Alaskans as much as communities in the lower 48, like tornado warnings, hurricane warnings, snow squall warnings. Those are alerts that we see elsewhere that trigger that alert that we're talking about. However, there are many alerts that we don't, put out through those very formal channels, specifically the wireless alert, system. more through the emergency alert system that goes through TV and radios, and those are ones like winter storm warnings, high wind warnings, coastal flood warnings. And those alerts are not an immediate threat to life and property, and which is why they don't ping your phone, because you don't need to take protective actions immediately. These are the warnings that are… serve as a heads up. Take actions to plan… to plan and prepare for what we are seeing out in the future, and that we want you to… to know about before we get to that period of time where you're going to see a threat. So that's really the difference, in what hazards we can… we see in Alaska and, Why there's a difference in how we alert people.

Edward Plumb: Great, thanks. Thanks, Aviva. I like how you shared how it's the immediate hazard that's going to have an impact to somebody, like, right now or in the next very short amount of time that these alerts are being sent out for. Speaking of immediate alerting, Dave, with the Tsunami Warning Center, We know if you're close to the earthquake epicenter and you're on the coast, that you know, you need to get alerted right away, so I'm curious your perspective. And I'll re-ask the question, just if people forgot, like, what hazards are Alaskans most likely to receive alerts for, and why are alerts issued for some hazards, but not others?

Dave Snider: Yeah, thanks, Ed. Tsunamis are certainly one of those that Alaskans would experience, and tsunami warnings are the only one that travel the full spectrum of public alerting. So a tsunami warning is something that we expect. Dry things on land to get wet, the inundating wave would come into your village or community. And for that, we need people to get out of the way, and we need them to know right away that this is on the way. Some communities, as you're saying, could see that impact in a matter of minutes following an earthquake like that. The challenge is that A lot of people think that we're going to tell you every single time that a tsunami is possible for your coastline. But we issue alerts for different levels of tsunami, including a tsunami advisory, which would not be an inundation expectation. It would be something that would be focused only at the shoreline along the coast in the harbor. Maybe there's a little water coming up, but primarily this is going to be a coastline, marine-based problem, and not a dry things getting wet problem. That's a tsunami advisory to us, and we do not send out an alert that goes that full distance, as a tsunami warning does, that would touch your cell phone on a wireless emergency alert and hit the emergency alert system through Aviva's office and the state communications system and broadcasters. a tsunami advisory only goes that distance through EAS and does not touch the cell phones today. So, in doing that, now, it's a confusing process because we don't have tsunamis every day, that's fine. But when you only get an alert sometimes and not others, and it says tsunami, which is probably the most important word in any of those alerts. It's confusing, because that repetition and that cycle and that understanding isn't always there. And… then you get into over-alerting, or that alert propagating beyond the targeted intention of reaching that community that needs an alert, needs to move right away, and that's confusing. So, consistency, cycles, complacency, and all those things really stack up. So, we issue alerts for those two things. A tsunami watch. Is also another level of an alert, but that's not sent out over the channels at all. That is something that would show up on our website, that would be something that we would send a message for, but it's not something that requires immediate action… yet. But again, that word tsunami that shows up and changes the look and feel of a website or other public communication tools in support of that gives the impression of some alert that you should have received. So now we've, you know, again, recycled that confusion part again. The one thing we don't send an alert for is a large quake that might have been felt, that you might have taken an action on your own, which we also encourage people to pay attention to natural warning signs, long shaking, unusual sounds, or activity in the ocean. And we issue a message, but not an alert, for a no-threat statement. Yes, you might have felt it, no further action is needed. That's a tsunami information statement. That, by far, is a message that we send on average, almost every day. But… If that is the only thing you ever see from us, and then you get… an alert that's transmitted to your phone, or shows up on radio, TV, and doesn't match the situation that you're understanding there, it can be a very confusing process. So, most likely, the number one thing that people would ever see from us on their personal device would be a tsunami warning.

Edward Plumb: Great, thanks. It's a very complex decision process, Dave, and I'm glad you summed it up with that. I was going to try to sum up what you're saying, but you… Summed it up in your last sentence there.

Dave Snider: Oh, you're kind. Thank you.

Edward Plumb: Yeah, thank you. And Nancy, kind of bringing it back to the local level, in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, do you have any comments about what hazards, Alaskans are most likely to receive alerts for, and why some are issued for… you issue some for… some hazard, but not for others.

Nancy Durham: Yes, We haven't issued any yet for flooding events, just because the same areas flood every year, and those individuals and residents and communities know that. We are out in the community when that happens. We issue most of our alerts, the majority, for wildfire season. And then, through the troopers or FECC, which is the Fairbanks Emergency Communications Center, they'll also issue Nixle alerts for the bomb threats or active shooters, like, to stay out of this area, so those will go through them because they're closing down the roads. For us, we use different levels, so for our RAVE alerts, that's going, like, our normal evacuation, ready, set, be prepared, or get ready. Those are going through RAVE alerts, but when we issue GO, we're pushing that through the iPAWS and the WEA, so that's going at the TVs and telephones. But we're also, because we have those areas just like rural communities, we have a lot of areas within our boundaries that do not have service, so we are posting evacuation changes for wildfires at their mailbox, or their primary gathering place, where that neighborhood goes. So we're posting those paper copies to let them know, hey, what's going on, and then we're also on social media, and then usually those that get it is word of mouth within their local corridor, like a river corridor or whatever, it's gone up the chain, like, this is what's happening, this is where we need to go. That kind of stuff. We have, luckily, haven't had any major hazardous spills, or events that we've had to issue alerts for that for evacuations or shelter-in-place or instructions. Those would be those bigger disaster types would go out through those iPAWS, and we, those immediate threats. Everything else, usually, if it's smaller, depending on what it is, we try to do rave, or it might be social media. So it just depends on the event, what's… what's going out, and how it's gone out.

Edward Plumb: Great, thanks, Nancy, and thanks for kind of touching on, you know, not only weather-type hazards, but, you know, like spills or other environmental hazards that may impact people. Mark and, Dennis, I'm going to move on to the next question. So, actually, the third question here, Mark, is for you. Can you walk us through how emergency alerts are delivered in Alaska, and how the local, state, and federal agencies and broadcasters coordinate when deciding whether to issue them.

Mark Roberts: Sure, so let's start… To be clear, there's a variety of things, like I said before, from knocking on doors all the way up to setting off cell phones. Key to understand, in the state of Alaska, most warnings are a local jurisdiction, local community responsibility. The state will step in and support them if required, or if their system failed, or they don't have one, but that is normally a local jurisdiction responsibility. So, having said that. He said that, there are, some state responsibility, as in, like, Amber Alert, and I can walk you through that, that's a kidnapped child. that is under the age, a certain age. It's certified by a law enforcement officer, reviewed by a supervisor. Foreign law enforcement, and then comes to the state. The State Department of Public Safety issues the Ember Alert with the State EOC support. We are the backup to them and issue that through WEA or through the Emergency Alert System, which is radio and TV, If that's required, if the primary system failed. We end up… the state ends up being the redundant for a number of different things. because of Alaska's unique infrastructure for communication. There's a variety of ways alerts can fail. And so we have a number of redundancies, but I will say we're extraordinarily conservative. The alerting community in Alaska is very conservative, trying to restrain and retain these very great tools that set off your phone, or interrupt your radio and television for the most important life safety event, and that's it. So we're very, very conservative. However, there's always a human in the loop. It takes time. Even at a tsunami warning, there's a human in the loop, decisions about Amber Alerts, there's a human in the loop. Decisions about whether there's a human in the loop, and that person or persons has to make a decision To alert this, and at what level? You see tragedy happen, When, with the best intent. Authorities get behind the power curve in wildland fires. Examples are Lahaina, Hawaii. And the fires in Los Angeles last, in January. The, the, the… Alerting authorities get behind the power curve. The situation is so dynamic and happening so fast. and they cannot react fast enough to issue the alert. So there's a real challenge in the alerting community between making the decision to alert folks and have, for example, make them take the action to evacuate. Versus, we don't need to do that yet, and we don't want to overwarn. And these are challenges that we deal with all the time. that are not merely technologically based, there are some limits in the technology, but also require human judgment. And that's one of the challenges we face. So I don't know if that specifically answered your question, but that kind of is kind of how we walk it.

Edward Plumb: I think that's a great summary Mark, especially when there's a lot going on, I mean, you gave an example, especially in wildfire, where it may move into, like, an urban area. Where it may be just a fire, and there's not a lot of concern yet, or you don't want to send out a message to evacuate a bunch of people, but then things change really quickly, like you mentioned in Hawaii, in Lahaina, where the fire raced through the community. I want to kind of direct this question to you, Dennis, since you're on the broadcasting and communications side. The question again is, how are emergency alerts actually delivered in Alaska? And how do local, state, federal agencies, and broadcasters coordinate when deciding to issue them?

Dennis Bookey: Well, just to follow up exactly on what Mark just said, talking about all that human aspect, we have a committee that interfaces between the broadcast industry. and public safety. And we all come to agreements on, you know, what's going to be on, for instance, Nancy was talking about, oh, we do this and this, and Aviva was talking about certain things and levels that are, and utilizing EAS. Everybody understands that, knows, agrees upon it. Where there is not a human is at the radio and television end. It's an automated process, and that's because all this has been evaluated ahead of time. We hand over those transmitters and nobody has to be doing anything. It automatically seizes the stream that goes out to the transmitter and puts that information on the air. And it works, because we communicate with each other, and it really works well in Alaska. It does not in every state in the U.S, I'll tell you that. The FCC has gone out of their way to tell us we do it far better as far as communication between public safety and broadcasters.

Edward Plumb: Great. Thanks, Dennis. Just real quick, Aviva or Dave, do you have a quick comment before we go on to the next question? If not, I can move on to the next one.

Dave Snider: Yeah, I'd just confirm what Dennis was saying, is a lot of what we do, once we send our message out, the understanding and connections we have are automatic, but it starts with a human in the loop, as Mark was saying. So it's really important there, but that process happens very quickly, but that only happens because of the coordination we do between events and on an annual cycle of checking and rechecking.

Edward Plumb: Great, thanks, Dave, and yeah, emphasis on the coordination, for sure. It sounds like a very complicated system to get alerts out, especially for the variety of alerts. So, I'm gonna move on to the next question. Dennis, this question is for you. Since you work closely with Alaska's broadcast and communication networks, what are the biggest challenges in ensuring Alaskans, especially in rural. Or remote areas actually receive timely alerts?

Edward Plumb: Hey, Dennis, hit mute on your device there.

Dennis Bookey: Sorry about that, folks. I'm in the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport. It's really kind of noisy here, so I want to make sure in between that I've got it quieted up. So, Dave mentioned very briefly that, and Aviva and the Weather Service are working overtime on this issue to not make sure we don't over-alert. Get into areas that the alert is not intended for. Well. Beyond that, the broadcaster has a real challenge. The equipment is very layered in the fact of how it could be filtered. You have a particular party or organization that is going to originate it. You have the type of alert. You have the area it's going to cover. All of those are all configurable in that piece of equipment. You don't want your equipment in Fairbanks to be set up to accept tsunami warnings in case one gets there, or whatever. And, most of the time, the ones that originate from public safety come formatted correctly, but what we do run into is broadcasters' equipment is not set up right, and they won't know until the event happens. And that's one of our biggest challenges, too, and why our state was one of the first ones that ever created live code tests, because you will hear tests on the air all the time. Well, all it does is approve that the test system works. It doesn't prove that the Amber Alert's gonna go over, it doesn't prove that the tsunami alert's gonna go over, or the severe thunderstorm, or whatever the situation may be. So, the only way you can find out is to actually run the real deal, and then make sure you, mitigate it by telling the public that this is really only a test. So, that's one of our biggest challenges, I think. That we face all the time, and it's gotten more complicated now that, iPAWS is around.

Edward Plumb: Thank you, Dennis. Appreciate that. I think Nancy and you both mentioned iPAWS, which is probably not a term most people know. I'll drop that in the chat, just so people know what that acronym means. I was gonna go to Nancy really quick. So the question, like, getting these alerts out, especially in rural and remote areas. You're in the Fairbank's North Star Borough, there are remote areas without cell service. If you go out the Steese Highway or, you know, up the Elliott Highway, how would you get messages to those folks out there?

Nancy Durham: So we have our Chatanika River Corridor, our Salcha River Corridor in, like, Haystack, Himalaya, all that area, which is north of town, off, as you're saying, the Steese and Elliott. For us getting alerts out there, it is more complicated, but we did learn over this past summer with wildfire seasons at one of the community meetings, a lot of people in the Haystack area, even though they don't have cell service, they still have landlines. So those iPAWS alerts. Is what we need to push a little bit more, because we'll be hitting those members, because they're not getting our RAVE alerts. The calls they are getting through iPAWS, which is the direct calls to them, and then radio as well, gets out there. They've also requested when we hit ready, to go and post that on their neighborhood mailbox boards, to put paper copies out there to let them know, hey, this is where we're at now. So, working with our community has helped us to figure out how to better us get them the messaging, and for them to receive the messaging. The firefighters, when they're out there, they're doing the door-to-door. We've already been doing the sign boards and the trap lines, and the trap lines is where you have signs in different areas leading up to that neighborhood and at your primary grocery stores or gas stations around town, so when people are in town. However, some people don't leave. Like I said, for those river corridors, it's word of mouth, so you have to post it at the boat launch. Or they might have a Facebook group where one or two are on it, and before they go out, then as they're going down the river, they're letting their neighbors know. So we're still learning, and it's a process. We don't have all the answers, and we would love to get more answers to help our community better, but we have a lot of areas that are off of service, and it's a little tricky. We also have a great CERT team that also helps get out there and post those notices for us.

Edward Plumb: Thanks, Nancy. Sounds like, yeah, you definitely get very creative on how it messages out. I mean, you're talking about putting flyers on mailboxes and things like that, Very different from the lower 48, I'm sure. I don't want to take too much time into the next question, but Dave or Aviva, any… any comments from, like, the tsunami or weather challenges, especially?

Aviva Braun: Yeah, if I may, connectivity is a challenge, and getting the weather information into the right hands at the right time is always a challenge for us. And it really has to do with getting in touch with the right community leaders, the right influencers for the community, and we work directly with people like Nancy for this reason. We want help getting things on the right, poster board, in the right location where people are congregating and getting the information. One thing that they do have in the lower 48 that we struggle with up here in Alaska is NOAA Weather Radio. And the reception area coverage we have is just not the coverage area that we would ideally want. We would want every single person to have that connectivity, and that's something that we've been able to rely upon in the most rural locations in the lower 48 that we can't hear. And that's because copper lines are expensive and hard to lay, and that's what it's reliant on. I will say that, the Weather Service is working hard to get this moved into a satellite dissemination, and I'm hearing positive things, so I think that there developments happening that will help Alaskans receive alerts more readily.

Edward Plumb: Thank you, Aviva. And I don't know, Dave, if you had a question, or a quick answer or not.

Dave Snider: You know, there's a lot of really innovative ideas out there, but Ed, when you and I were in American Samoa for a tsunami hazard mitigation, program, we saw those communities using oxygen tanks, and literally banging on them to sound the alarm for their communities, and it was just fascinating to see the innovation there at that scale. But it worked, they've rehearsed it, they use it, they rely on it. And whatever that answer is for Alaska. Let's leverage that, but also incorporate those technologies that we know work in other parts of the country.

Edward Plumb: Hey, great example. I forgot about that, alerting system in American Samoa. That's a great example. Mark, I'm not going to be able to ask you this question, but you kind of touched on it in your opening. I want to get to the last question here. But I'm going to give everybody a chance to respond to this one. But I'll start with, Dave. So, from your perspective at the National Tsunami Warning Center. What improvements or innovations are being worked on to make Alaska's alerting system more effective? And if there's one thing you want Alaskans to know about emergency alerts, where to find them, or how to sign up, what would it be?

Dave Snider: Boy, there's a lot there. I could do a whole podcast on all the things that we're working on, but the good news is I think we're listening to the communities, we're listening to folks like Mark and Dennis, and our communities, and our forecast office integrations with Aviva and all those teams to start getting this message correct, because we know it's not. We know it's not serving and going the distance we need it to go. But we've already done one thing. Just this week, the language that you will see on your wireless emergency alert for tsunami warnings, because that's the only alert you'll get on your phone like that. has changed. It no longer says the words, you are in danger, because we know that our alerts are not targeted properly all the time. So we've made a language change, because that's a tool that we can leverage today, but we haven't changed the targeting of that message yet, and we're working on that with other conversations and other federal agencies to get that more precise. But here at home, the tsunami Warning Centers are working on a new dissemination system technology that will allow us to work through the National Weather Service system that does work very well, but we haven't had access to for years, or ever, really. So we're going to be integrated into that, that's coming soon, and that will help us build a foundation for other technological changes that we can do to improve the actual words in your tsunami messages that you see. And those social science studies are underway right now. Fascinating results that are starting to come in today. Just today, I'm seeing these things that tell us that we have a lot of work to do on education and coordination of the words that we use in between events and absolutely during events. And that will be revealing in how we move forward with The education and everything that has to happen in between those learning events to keep us at that readiness state that is required for a no-notice event like tsunami.

Edward Plumb: Thank you, Dave. I know you probably could have talked for another hour about that.

Dave Snider: Happy to anytime.

Edward Plumb: That might be a whole other webinar in itself about the Tsunami Warning Center. Yeah, I guess I would like to go around each panelist. How about, Mark? Is there one thing you want Alaskans to know about emergency alerts? Like, where to find them, how to sign up, or what would it be? Especially for you, Mark. I think in those rural areas that you have jurisdiction over, that aren't in an organized borough, or they've got an alerting system and things like that.

Mark Roberts: Well, we work hard to use social media or whatever's available in that community. I guess I want to just emphasize two things. One, it's an individual, family, and local jurisdiction responsibility. And so, this myth of, you know, the federal government or the state government is gonna do this thing, that's not true. We're going to do our very, very best. But it's up to all of us, and I realize, folks, this is the truth. You know, I'm worried about putting gas in my car, having enough money to put gas in my car. Folks can't pay attention to everything. So we at the state and this group that's on this call, are extremely conservative in when we are triggering your phone, and triggering your radio and TV. Sending something out, we think, to the best of our ability, it possibly could kill you. And you need to take action in the next 15 minutes. And so, those kind of things are things you want to pay attention to, but it's a local-driven thing. Your family alerting each other. Your neighborhood, alerting each other. You being tied in with your local city, tribe, community, neighborhood, fish camp. That is how this is all gonna work, because it's not all going to be solved by technology. Even if we pushed out a perfect message, people still wouldn't know what to do with it if they hadn't done the background work to understand.

Edward Plumb: Thank you, Mark. It takes a community, right? I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah, we'll move on to… how about Aviva?

Aviva Braun: Yeah, there's two things that I want to say. There's one thing that I would want people to take note of. Know what the threats are in your area. Know what could affect you. If your local jurisdiction is offering preparedness courses, or if you want to just know more about what your threats are in your area, it's good to be proactive. It's good to reach out to local leadership and become more in the know, because knowledge is power. Through the Weather Service, I want to say that we post a lot of our weather alerts and what we're seeing coming in the future. onto our webpages, onto our social media webpages, that's Facebook and X. And then for those no-notice situations, we're gonna send it out to your phone, especially if it's a life-threatening situation where you need to take protective actions. The other thing I want to mention is we've been speaking a lot about land communities. I want to touch on mariners as well. And of course, they're also, affected by tsunamis, but… there are a lot of very strong storms that happen over maritime areas, and we're working closely with the Alaska Marine Exchange, and they're doing a lot of work on their own on behalf of mariners to protect them. They have now developed, an automated… automatic identification system, I want to make sure I say that right, the AIS system that alerts all the vessels moving through sections of Alaskan waters. And with this, they report out vessel locations, the speed, specific weather observations in the area, even reported, by other vessels in that area. And also, it reports the weather information that we put out through our forecast offices for that zone. So mariners have the ability to receive all of this information that could potentially be life-saving, especially if it's a heavy freezing spray event that they are walking or sailing into. So, that is something that they would need to sign up for through the Alaska Marine Exchange. They also have a web-based version of that. What I just told you about is through VHF Radio Channel 16.

Edward Plumb: Thank you, Aviva, and yeah, thanks for touching on the marine area, which you know, Alaska has a vast marine area with a lot of mariners out there, so hazards don't just occur on the land, and we rely on marine traffic for a lot of services across Alaska, so that's a very important aspect that you brought up. Let's, move on to Dennis, and then and then we'll finish up with Nancy on the last question. Then we'll take some questions from the audience. So Dennis, is there one last thing you want Alaskans to know about emergency alerts that you'd like to share with everyone from the broadcasting perspective?

Akasofu 413N - Salmon Room: I think that Dennis might have dropped off.

Edward Plumb: Oh, okay, okay, thanks, Heather. As Dennis mentioned, he's in the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. So, yeah, we'll go on to Nancy. Do you have any comments to that question?

Nancy Durham: So, ditto to everything everybody else said, and we are currently working on our multi-jurisdiction hazard mitigation plan update, so if you want input, please, FNSB Emergency Ops webpage has a whole bunch of information on it. We are looking for input to help with that. The biggest thing that we've learned over the last 3 major wildfire seasons we've had is we're working closely with our partners, like Forestry, DOT, State of Alaska, because we've had quite a few fires cross boundaries. And, you know, they don't look at lines, fires, and floods, they don't look at lines on a paper, they just go where they want to go, and so we all join forces to fight them together. But we have the subject matter expert push out the main messaging for those alerts and warnings. And then the rest of us, we turn around and immediately share that message. But we're all doing that and it's all coordinated, we're all working together, we're all pushing it out at the same time, and then that way, messaging is not getting tweaked, it's getting shared from all the reliable sources and the key person. Like DOT for roads, or us for alerts and warnings for evacuations. Those key messages are staying with the subject matter authority, written in the correct language, and not getting twisted in any way. So, for those other jurisdictions on this call, if you haven't started doing that, I highly recommend you do that and coordinate that. It has made a world of difference, and it helps with combating that misinformation out there as well for those alerts and warnings.

Edward Plumb: Thank you for sharing that, Nancy. And, we do have Dennis back. Dennis, the question was, If there's one thing you want Alaskans to know about emergency alerts. Where to find them, how to sign up, whatever, from the broadcasting communication perspective. And you are muted. Looks like he's got a mute issue. There you are, Dennis.

Dennis Bookey: There we go, okay. So, I just want to add to what Aviva and Mark said, in the fact that the emergency alert system is a warning system. It's not going to give you everything that you need, necessarily. Know what your risks are in your area, and know where to go to get them. I'll just add real quickly, every time the earth shakes, like Dave was talking, I sit there and type tsunami.gov and refresh it until I know the coast is clear. In my position, I just want to know, is something going on somewhere else out in the water that we need to know? And one thing to add that improvements are being made. Thanks to the FCC coming around and changing a few things, the audio quality is going to start improving on a higher percentage of the emergency alert messages that you hear on television and on radio, too. And I can't say enough about how hard the National Weather Service is working to make sure that the over-alerting, going into areas that We shouldn't be getting messages to is going to be improved on. It's been a multi-year project. Aviva might have been covering that while I was disconnected. If you did, I'm sorry. But I can't say enough, because it's a very complicated system, and the other key thing I want everybody to take away is it's not perfect. It messes up. It just does sometimes, because it's really convoluted. We don't bat a thousand, but it does pretty darn good. But, that's something that I did want everybody to understand, and know where to go get additional information.

Edward Plumb: Thank you, Dennis. Appreciate you sharing that. We're down to the last few minutes here. I did want to open it up for questions. There are a few questions in the chat. Nancy, thank you for getting in there and answering some of the questions, I appreciate that. Is there anyone online that would like to ask a question directly, though? We will allow you to be able to unmute yourself.

Edward Plumb: Any questions from the audience directly to the panelists? Okay, hearing nothing, I'm going through the questions that were in the chat here, and it looks like, one question that wasn't answered, I don't know if I'll read this whole thing, but do the panelists have a perspective reflections on how AI is experienced and understood by persons and communities finally receiving alerts. It's a pretty long question, but this is about, do you expect AI to impact more? Are you having to take time and resources to educate others about AI and use of your roles? So, I don't know if any of you have comments on AI and the impacts to the alerting system?

Dave Snider: Ed, I'll jump in there real quick and just say that at that point in the process, I want humans involved. Right? There's a lot of things we can do prior to that that I think might be well served by some AI functions, but in that moment, for those decisions of danger, no danger, go and no go, we absolutely need that human filter, and I do not want that… I don't want to see our process Leveraging that and that moment of great decision and importance. But there's a lot of things that can help us get to that point of understanding to make that decision. There's a lot of filtering and analysis that can be sped up if we're leveraging tools like that, and a lot of things that can help summarize events as well, and information, but… But some things are, today, too important, I think, to use that tool where it is.

Mark Roberts: And this is Mark Roberts. I can add to that what Dave said. We see a role for artificial intelligence in the origination of the wording of the message. Grabbing and taking, but the decision to send it and judgment is critical. I'll just give you an example. We had a Kaktovik earthquake originally recorded as 6.0 a couple days ago. It woke our guys up because we have a threshold for 6.0. It turned out it was a system error. Not criticizing anyone, it's just the technology there. It ended up being 3.3. No action needed. So, we have a threshold we act on at 6.0. Magnitude's not the only thing. Reports of casualties or damage as well. But I'm just saying that, you know, technological systems are only able to do so much. You need a human in the loop, and particularly when these are life safety decisions where you're asking people to move to high ground or to a shelter location. You have to establish the shelter and make sure there's an area for people at the shelter are able to receive them. Medical services at the shelter, security at the shelter, the accesses are clear for them to evacuate in order to move. The last thing you'd want to do is to send someone into a higher hazard area, or an area that allows them to be at greater risk than where they are, versus shelter in place. And so those are all decisions that are made in real time that require careful human analysis.

Edward Plumb: Oh, well said, Mark. Completely agree. Well, it looks like we're at the top of the hour, and there was one question in the chat, but I want to make sure everybody, the panelists all are able to, if anyone's able to stick around just for a moment. Heather has put the contact information for the panelists up on the screen. But one question. Since Halong was such a big event in Alaska, the question is, what were the alerts made in advance of and during Typhoon Halong? Is there room for improvement, or did existing systems work as intended?

Mark Roberts: I'll start and then I'm gonna hand it off to Aviva, because it ended up being a weather issue. But I will tell you, we have a procedure, and we did this, for what was the first storm before Halong with a series of storms, and then the second storm, ex-Typhoon Halong, coming. We actually had a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in the State Emergency Operations Center when that was occurring. We made calls to communities and gave them advice and information on where the risk was, but there wasn't the precision available from the Weather Service to say Technic and Kwig were going to be obliterated. And so I'll let Aviva hand off and answer that, but I will say this, just in a total understanding of the information that's available to the nation, and the world, for that matter. If you look at how hurricanes are predicted, and I have colleagues in the low 48, 5 Days out you have a cone. Three days out, you have another cone. And then about an hour, 2 or 3 hours before landfall, they can tell you where it will make landfall, but even then, they can be off by 50 to 100 miles. So, this is Alaska without the same level of instrumentation, without the same level of gauging and ability, and this was over 1,500 miles of coastline on the west coast of Alaska. So, I'm going to let Aviva answer that, but we did do community calls, and we will continue to do that. There's tons of room for improvement. But there's only so much we can do at this point.

Aviva Braun: Yeah, thanks for that, Mark. Ex-Typhoon Halong went through a number of reintensification cycles, and if I've learned anything about seeing them on the Atlantic, it changes a lot about their nature, and where they will move, and what track they will take. And we saw that happen twice with Halong. It was taking a different course at 5 days out than it was taking at 3 days out, just like Mark said, and as we gained more precision and more knowledge of what was happening when, we modified our messaging, we reached out to communities, we were very grateful for the help from the SEOC, which helped with help of that dissemination. It was going to hit an area of the coastline that is incredibly rural and lacks some of the infrastructure, to get the information that they need. And, the products that we… the weather products that we issued, high wind warnings and coastal flood warnings. are not WIAD, meaning it doesn't go to your, doesn't go to your cell phone and make that just very loud, disturbing sound, because it's not an immediate threat to life and property. It is still a threat to life and property, but it's more of a long-term long-term forecasts and that short-duration turnaround that we… we need people to react to very quickly. So, yes. Our systems worked. I do think that there's a lot of room for improvement, and this is some of the conversations that we're having behind the scenes of how do we fix this? How do we disseminate better? Is there opportunities for products that might be, more intuitive or being more clear, in the future?

Edward Plumb: Thank you, thank you, Aviva, and thank you to all the panelists for sticking around over the top of the hour here for a few minutes. I just thought that was an important question since that was such a big event in Alaska, so I really wanted to touch on that question. But, I don't want to take any more of your time, and thank you all again for participating, being a panelist. Like I said, this discussion has been recorded, and I will send out an email with the recording link in a few days. Probably early next week, and in addition to, I'll send out some resources with links to how to get alert, emergency alert messages for wherever you are around the state. And thank you everyone, we appreciate it, and have a good afternoon.