Emergency alerts have been important recently because it is a way to warn many people that the situation around them is unsafe. There are 3 types of emergency alerts that are usually issued by the authorities, depending on the type of disasters or threats that are happening.
The main purpose of issuing an emergency alert is to protect individuals in a particular region from any harmful events. Besides a warning, they usually receive a message about evacuation routes and other tips to stay safe. What are the types of emergency alerts for safety and disaster management?
3 Types of Emergency Alerts
1. Natural Disaster Alerts
A natural disaster alert is a warning to inform about potential hazards because of certain natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and wildfires. The alerts that people receive will be timely because people should stay away from the source of disaster. It pops up on the gadget screen simultaneously.
Earthquake and wildfire alerts arrive after the incidents occur. For tsunamis and hurricanes, the alerts are issued during the critical time. People have to prepare themselves with some emergency actions. It is possible if the alerts include evacuation routes and the location of the shelters nearby.
2. Weather Emergency Alerts
Weather conditions can be dangerous when it has serious severity. Every local authority should understand that local areas have different potential weather hazards. It can risk many things, such as lives, infrastructure, and property. Weather emergency alerts have different types as well according to the weather condition in that area.
Thunderstorms, tornadoes, flood, and typhoon warnings have different types of measurement. However, these warnings still use the same system. After sensors read recorded data and show potential hazards, the alerts will arrive on everyone’s gadget to notify them about the warning. Many agencies are involved in this warning system.
3. Civil Emergency Alerts
Public safety is one of the 3 types of emergency alerts. It is issued by the local authorities when they see some emergency that can harm public safety. It can be a large volume of messages to send to people in that specific area, so they can avoid the source of the threat.
The civil emergency alerts include infrastructure emergencies where failures and collapses happen, hazardous material warnings such as chemical spills, and evacuation orders. The main purpose of this alert is to evacuate people to a safer place or a shelter-in-place provided by the government.
The Components in an Emergency Alert
1. Information of the event
The main component of all 3 types of emergency alerts is information about the event. It raises awareness for every individual in case they are not aware of it yet. With this information, they know the potential danger that may follow after that.
2. The risk level
In the text of the emergency alert, there is a risk level that shows the severity of the event and potential aftermath. Three stages will indicate the status, advisory, watch, and warning. When people see a warning message, it is time to evacuate to other safe places.
3. Urgency level
This part shows that the individual who gets the message should or should not take some action. For example, a message about an earthquake with a magnitude below 4.0 will not guide people to do anything. Above that magnitude, the alert can show that some actions are required for safety.
4. Guidelines
When disasters or threats have high severity to harm many lives, the guideline is the main component in the message as well. There might be an evacuation route that people should follow in a few minutes. There is information about evacuation and shelter areas that people can go to.
5. Pop-up and vibration
The message of all 3 types of emergency alerts will show up immediately on the screen without going to the message menu. Thus, the vibration follows because it needs the user's attention in a short time. This component is part of the alert message without any additional settings on the gadget.
Those 3 types of emergency alerts help the government to ensure people’s safety when disasters and threats appear in particular situations. To spread awareness and update, they can rely on an SMS broadcaster. This device sends warning messages efficiently without any delays in critical situations.
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