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Feel free to use, quote, distribute, or share this. Anyone is free to post this with appropriate attribution.
By creating the COOs (Communications Operations Orders) it enabled us to provide each LECC chair with the LECCQ Questionaire. Then, they filled it out and returned it to us. We then wrote the COOs to assure compliance, workability, and uniformity. The LECCs didn't need to write plans. Other states requested a copy of the following and the LECCQ. It's here to share if you may benefit from it.
Here is a Model Plan with Revision Page & Abbreviations that can be used
to form your own plans.
(* Wor../Document.)
For further information and assistance in writing plans please contact the EAS Program Manager, Ben Green. Contact Information: P.O. Box 419047, Rancho Cordova CA 95741-9047 Telephone: 916-845-8603. FAX 916-845-8606. E-mail: EAS_PM@oes.ca.gov
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Most EBS plans follow a format established circa 1963 that, with all due respect, outlived its usefulness almost at the offset. The problem is not what is said but how it is presented. The typical EBS plan, after long and laborious writing, is obsolete the day after it is printed. Why? Because it is laced with transient, changeable, and "volatile" information.
Perhaps someone envisioned the EBS Plan hanging on every broadcast control room in the nation. Then comes the emergency! The control operator (usually "combo") takes the voluminous EBS Plan off the wall, turns down the lights and the program audio, dutifully studies The Plan and searches for a description of what it is he or she is to do. Come on now! That is the trouble with plans formatted like that. We are loathe to update, publish, and redistribute them again when an important change is made. In a state like California with its 25 Local Areas, changes occur one or more a month. Some of our Local Areas are as big or bigger that some states!
The solution? Place all the obligatory verbiage in one part that contains no names, call letters, telephone numbers, specific procedures, or anything else that could become obsolete tomorrow. All transitory and specific procedures are instead placed in separate, one-page, numbered and dated Communications Operations Orders (COOs).
Every key player in the EAS needs to have only the one or two COOs in hand that apply to them. Take the rest of the Plan and the COOs and file it. You need refer only to your current one-page COO. Now isn't that a lot simpler?
Here are the seven COOs that can apply to any Local Area in California -- or the Nation:
COO #1. Monitor Assignments
This identifies the LP1 and who they monitor (adjacent Area LP1s, the National Weather Service radio (NWR), State Relay Network, the Local Government Radio system, etc.)
The LP2 station(s). An LP2 is a station that may be a local backup for the LP1 and/or one or more distant stations required to serve stations that cannot receive the LP1 consistently.
An LP1S station? An LP1S is a Spanish language station that agrees to translate all "must carry" category National and Local EAS messages into Spanish. Any other Spanish language stations will be instructed (by this COO) to monitor the LP1S and the LP1. Some areas may require an LP1V for their Vietnamese audience, an LP1J for Japanese language translations, LP1P for Filipino, and so on.
LP stations: Specify exactly who and what they will monitor. Two are mandatory; additional sources are voluntary.
Specify the frequency of the NWR and its location.
Specify any other government radio systems that will be used as a part of the EAS. We do not recommend RPU frequencies; they can be overrun by out of town media in the event of a major incident. There is nothing sacred about RPU frequencies; they are there for the first come, first served. In California, the statewide CLERS (California Law Enforcement Radio System) is the State Relay System and it is available to Local Areas for their local EAS activation purposes.
This COO may be filed; it's not one that need be posted on the control room wall.
COO #2. Event Codes
Not the full list, or any code list of what you may or might want to have in the future, but just those that your LECC agrees are in the "must carry" category now; i.e., all there deem these will be carried and they will be automated carry in applicable stations. All the rest of the Event Codes are in the "discretionary carry" category.
Some of our local emergency "must carry" Events in California are Tsunami WARNING, Tornado WARNING, Flash Flood WARNING, Civil Emergency WARNING, and Evacuate Immediately WARNING.
This COO is used for initial EAS terminal programming and may be filed.
COO #3. National Weather Service
This instructs your responsible National Weather Service Office precisely what is expected of them for the EAS. This includes the FIPS codes over the NWR for both the "target" county and the neighboring counties that have broadcasters listened to or viewed in the "target" county. If you don't instruct the NWS to do this over their NWR, it may not be done.
Part 2 of this COO is the specific instruction on what to do if the NWR is off the air. All NWS Forecast Offices have special receivers that will alarm in the absence of any NWR audio or carrier. The NWS will then have to telephone the affected Local Area LP1's unlisted or "EAS hotline" telephone number to read and have recorded the Warning bulletin. This section should include a simple "how to announce it", starting with a countdown, announcing the Warning, and concluding with "This concludes this special message from the National Weather Service and the Emergency Alert System. Stay tuned to this station for additional details."
This COO is posted by the NWS and the LP1 and LP2 stations. All others may file it.
COO #4. LP1/LP2 Stations
This states succinctly what the LP1, LP2, and LP1S stations do. Station management should supplement it with what specific buttons to push, etc.
This COO is posted at the LP1, LP2, and LP1S stations. All others may file it.
COO #5. Officials Authorized to Activate the EAS
Title of official or facility and direct callback number. The fewer the better.
It gives the unlisted or EAS hotline number(s) to call.
It refers the official to the Authentication COO -- if applicable.
LP1 (and perhaps the LP2) must post this. All others file.
COO #6. Authentication Procedure
Used by most Local Areas. LP1 station operator asks the EAS activation requestor to authenticate a numeral. The requester must reply with the right code words from the Local Area Authenticator List in this COO. No match? Hangup. This list, by the way, is NOT the National Authenticator list. I can provide prepared lists to any California Local Area chair requiring one.
This COO is posted at any location or with any official authorized to activate the EAS and at the LP1/LP2 stations. IT IS NOT PROVIDED TO OTHERS NOT HAVING A NEED TO KNOW.
COO #7. Required Monthly Test
The specific procedures, day, times, and script for the 12 coordinated monthly broadcasts that must be transmitted and carried by all broadcast stations and cable TV companies --- simulcast by unattended or automated stations and no more than 15 minutes delay by all others.
California broadcasters opt for the day and night RMT to be done by the LP1 at 10 minutes before the hour. The 15 minute window in which you must rebroadcast the RMT the most convenient for TV and radio broadcast stations. Half-past the hour is NOT convenient to TV stations.
Will it originate only from the LP1 station? Or will it originate from the Local Area EOC? The latter is preferred because it truly tests the system and the key players end to end. If there are multiple EOCs it can be rotated on different months. It is important to involve the local authorities if you expect it ever to used.
Posted at ALL broadcast and cable TV companies and emergency management agencies. Filed by all others.
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The State Plan has at least three State COOs that apply to all Local Areas:
COO #1. LP1 Station Assignments
COO #2. State Relay Network
COO #3. State Event Codes
Return to the EAS Home Page
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Updated:
TPP - 20021212