Heads up EAS participants — a key deadline is just around the corner.
By Nov. 6, EAS participants are being asked to submit info to their respective State Emergency Communications Committees regarding the sending of non-English EAS alerts.
It was back in March that the Federal Communications Commission revised part of the commission’s Part 11 EAS regulations that revolve around EAS participant and SECC reporting requirements. These updated reporting requirements were designed to ensure that the commission has updated information on any existing and planned multilingual EAS alerting activities at the state, local and EAS participant levels.
As a result, the FCC has instituted three main reporting requirements with two different deadlines. The first deadline is Nov. 6, and by that date, EAS participants must provide the following information to their respective SECCs.
- A description of any actions taken by the EAS participant to make EAS alert content available in languages other than English to its non-English speaking audience; and
- A description of any future planned actions to provide EAS alert content in languages other than English.
Step two is for SECCs to provide a summary of such information received from EAS participants as part of their individual state EAS plan. The deadline for submitting that information to the FCC is May 4, 2018.
Then, the third step: EAS participants must submit letters describing such changes to both their respective SECCs and the chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau at [email protected]. This must be submitted within 60 days of any major change to such information they have reported.
Contact information for individual state emergency committees can be found here and the complete FCC order can be found here.
