Emergency alerts will be showing up on more digital billboards in the United States through a partnership of FEMA and Lamar Advertising.
“The alerts are transmitted over FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) on select Lamar digital billboards throughout the country,” the agency wrote in a press release.
[Read: COVID-19 and Emergency Alerting Best Practices]
The announcement was made by Administrator Pete Gaynor, who called 2020 an “unprecedented” year for public alerts thanks to the pandemic and “a record number” of hurricanes.
IPAWS alerts have appeared on Lamar digital billboards in 17 states “and are available to run in all 43 states that Lamar covers,” FEMA said.
“Alerts will be displayed for 30 minutes at a time. Not all alerts sent through FEMA will appear on a Lamar billboard.”
FEMA said that since 2011 IPAWS has carried more than 81,000 alerts and warnings, and of those, 11,000 have been delivered in 2020 alone.
