I think cell broadcasting is a good technology for reaching that last mile. We’re not very good at getting up to speed in the States. They probably figured they’d have time to incorporate cell technology into the existing warning systems. They haven’t, but perhaps becuase they don’t feel it’s as urgent.
I’m glad Nuwan brought up this problem with regards to the mass media. A good example is that there was a large earthquake. The Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning and New Zealand issued a warning. The warning status just indicates a threat to your coastline. The New Zealand authority decided this would not require an evacuation. The local media picked up on this and in effect started an unnecessary evacuation of parts of New Zealand.
You have to look, how do you connect in. We have to figure out how we connect the dots with the media, so there isn’t any confusion.
For example, if there’s a large disturbance in the Aleutians, civil defence wants 3 hours to evacuate. But what if people start to evacuate before, traffic gets clogged up, etc. So how do we deal with this. You want the public to know, but you don’t want to mess up the disaster warning system.
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