FCC Workshop to Promote Wider Use of the Emergency Alert System

Date/Time: August 27, 2015, 1:00 PM - 4:30 PM EDT

Location: Commission Meeting Room at FCC Headquarters, located at 445 12th Street, SW, Room TW-C305, Washington, DC 20554

Description: The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will host a workshop to promote the wider use and increased accessibility of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) on Thursday, August 27, 2015, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. The workshop will be held in the Commission Meeting Room at FCC Headquarters, located at 445 12th Street, SW, Room TW-C305, Washington, DC 20554.

As part of the FCC’s continuing commitment to ensure that emergency alert and warning systems are effective and available to all Americans, the workshop will explore two key issues: (1) how to improve the usefulness of the EAS for emergency managers at the state and local levels (e.g., Emergency Operation Centers, Public Safety Answering Points, Police, Fire and Emergency Medical Services), and (2) how to improve the accessibility of alerts to people with disabilities. In particular, the workshop will discuss methods to empower and encourage state and local emergency managers to utilize the EAS and Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) systems more widely for localized alerts and exercises. The workshop will also address the accessibility of EAS visual messages, including the technical feasibility of improving the synchronicity of EAS audio with the EAS visual crawl and the readiness of Text-to-Speech (TTS) technology for increased usage in national and local alerting. Additional details regarding the workshop, including the workshop agenda, will be released in a forthcoming Public Notice.

Registration: The workshop will be open to the public, but admittance will be limited to seating availability. The workshop will be streamed live with open captioning over the Internet from the FCC’s web page at www.fcc.gov/live. Those watching the live video stream of the event may email event-related questions to livequestions@fcc.gov.

Additional Information: Sign language interpreters, open captioning and assistive listening devices will be provided on site. Other reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities are available upon request. Last minute requests will be accepted, but may be impossible to fulfill. To make a request for reasonable accommodations or to request this press release or any other materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities, contact fcc504@fcc.gov or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (tty).

For more information about the meeting, please contact John A. Evanoff, Attorney-Advisor, Policy and Licensing Division, PSHSB at (202) 418-0848 or via e-mail at john.evanoff@fcc.gov.