Virtual Training: Advancements in Public Alert & Warning Capabilities for Building Safer Communities

On September 1, 2016, the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS Foundation conducted a virtual training session with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) and the tools available to support integration and use by public safety agencies nationwide.

Through this virtual training, participants learned how IPAWS provides officials with an effective way to alert and warn the public about serious emergencies using the Emergency Alert System (EAS), Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA), the NOAA Weather Radio, and other public alerting systems from a single interface. They also learned about the availability of the IPAWS data feed made available by DHS, standardized symbols aligned with IPAWS event codes, and how to integrate the IPAWS data feed and standardized symbols into situational awareness application and common operating platforms. This virtual training helped public safety practitioner and GIS responders to gain awareness-level knowledge in the following:

  • What IPAWS is all about and how it can benefit your agency and the communities you serve.
  • Ion IPAWS enhancement efforts to increase effectiveness, including the development and implementation of standardized symbols within alerts and warnings.
  • Live demonstration on what public alerts and warning symbols look like when integrated into your GIS and location-enabled decision support tools.
  • How IPAWS has been integrated into the Geospatial Information Infrastructure (GII), the live IPAWS data feed available to you – and how to use it in your agency’s situational awareness applications and other location-enabled decision support tools

Provided below is a link to the materials used in the training and a link to the full recording.

Additional Links & Resources