The Emergency Public Information & Warning Work Group met virtually at 1.00pm on Thursday, September 3rd.

The Work Group held a demo of AlertSense, a mass notification vendor with a stronghold in western states that is slowly gaining clients in Texas.  AlertSense is interoperable with all IPAWS channels.  It supports multiple languages and delivery paths (text, phone call, email, push notification, mobile app), as well as geo-spatial (via ESRI) features.

We discussed coordination during the recent activation for Hurricane Laura and highlighted some challenges with communication between jurisdictions on STEAR.  The Work Group suggested putting together a distribution list centered on the current STEAR Advisory Group, so that key players are on the same page in the future.

We reviewed the remaining outstanding items from the Regional Emergency Public Information Plan (EPIP), including appendices and job-aids.  The EPIP is still waiting on a final list of Local Warning Points.  Please reach out to lach.mullen@houstontx.gov and shelli.carter@houstontx.gov with your jurisdiction’s LWP.  The Work Group saw no significant issues with replacing previous job-aids with a link to the National Response Team’s products, so the reference is evergreen.

The next scheduled meeting is: Thursday, November 5th at 1.00pm.