With a fire raging in a methane tank at a power plant, West Virginia officials, fearing an explosion, turned to a relatively new technique to help evacuate a one-mile radius around the plant.
They texted.
Well, sort of. They actually beamed to cell phones a Wireless Emergency Alert through a federal system that works with telecom companies to issue warnings.
The system seems to be a quintessential 21st-century emergency management tool, built for ease, efficiency and speed. West Virginia’s maiden use of the system backfired, however.
Human error led to a flawed alert being sent. That created confusion for message recipients. The alert was distributed far beyond the area authorities had intended because emergency officials could not control the range; rather, they were at the mercy of the telecom carriers’ network of cell phone towers.
And the situation exposed a potential national problem with federal limitations on public testing of the system, one that could affect several hundred agencies authorized to use the Wireless Emergency Alerts system around the country, including nine in Pennsylvania.
West Virginia opted to trigger the wireless alert system after a fire broke out Jan. 5 in one of six methane tanks at the coal-fired Longview Power Plant in Maidsville, near Morgantown.
Monongalia County decided to evacuate a 1-mile radius. It sent out an alert at 2:29 p.m. through its own notification system, called Swiftreach. While firefighters knocked on doors, Swiftreach dialed land lines and cell phones and left an automated message.
Users must opt into the Swiftreach call list, though, so local cell phone users who had not registered did not get the alert. The same was true for anyone from outside Monongalia County who happened to be in Maidsville.
Michael Wolfe, director of the county’s Homeland Security Emergency Management Agency, notified the state’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management about the evacuation. Its director, Jimmy Gianato, who is based in Charleston, offered to send out a wireless message. The alert could reach even smartphone users who were just passing through the Maidsville area. There was no need to register to receive the alert, and most carriers and phones would deliver it.
That’s when things broke down.
Mr. Gianato copied the same message sent out by Swiftreach into his computer system to be sent as a wireless alert through a federal network called the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS).
That system allows for emergency communications by the president and all levels of government. It also handles Amber Alerts for missing children and urgent weather warnings.
Messages can be transmitted through the traditional Emergency Alert System — the long tone on TV and radio that is often tested — as well as through Wireless Emergency Alerts, which launched in April 2012.
“Alerts received at the right time can help keep you safe during an emergency,” the Federal Emergency Management Agency website says.
“With WEA, warnings can be sent to your mobile device when you may be in harm’s way, without need to download an app or subscribe to a service.”
When Mr. Gianato sent the wireless message he made several mistakes. He did not shorten the message to meet the system’s 90-character limit. And he did not insert certain computer codes.
“It was an operator error on my part,” Mr. Gianato said.
Soon, reports began coming in that people 20 miles away and a county over were receiving alerts to flee.
Worse, Mr. Gianato’s error caused a warning to pop up on those far-away cell phone screens that said only “evacuate now,” followed by a truncated version of his name.
“If you want the message that shows on the phones to be different than the message that goes into IPAWS, you have to put a special code in to make that happen,” Mr. Gianato said. “Originally, on the first alert, we didn’t put that code in. I guess it picked the words it wanted, or thought were important, and sent out ‘evacuate now’ and somehow put my name on it, or part of my name.”
The message was repeated at 30-minute intervals up to four times before officials learned there was a problem. Mr. Gianato worked with FEMA to shut down the alert. The fire was quickly brought under control, and no one was injured.
Karie Wohlgemuth, a spokeswoman for California-based NC4, which supplied Mr. Gianato with the software used to send the alerts, said no problems were found with the product.
“I’m not aware of how the system would take random characters and put them in an order not originally intended,” Ms. Wohlgemuth said. “We’ve had several conversations now with Jimmy, and we’re also going back to the table with FEMA.”
West Virginia authorities were unable to test the system before triggering it during an actual emergency, hindering them from working out any kinks ahead of time.
“There are [Federal Communications Commission] rules that don’t allow you to test the wireless portion,” Mr. Gianato said.
The FCC acknowledged that although there is no outright testing ban, the way the rules are written has the same effect.
“As a practical matter, the system is constructed so that at present only FEMA can send a test alert,” the FCC said.
“Simply put, the FCC rules do not currently allow for such tests by state and local governments.”
FEMA said the commission adopted rules recommended by a committee of cellular service providers as an effort to “avoid the ‘cry wolf’ effect” — subscribers getting so many test messages that they opt out of receiving alerts entirely.
Ms. Wohlgemuth agreed about the importance of testing.
She said that although NC4 and its clients can run simulations and input information, they are limited by not being able to see the output, or what appears on people’s cell phone screens.
West Virginia had to wait for the stresses of a real emergency and then had to hope everything ran smoothly — which it did not.
“Until an actual message went out, we didn’t know what was actually going to show up on a phone. That was the part of this that really was the unknown,” Mr. Gianato said. “And now we know.”
Wesley W. Hill, director of Beaver County Emergency Services, said he received approval to use the notification system in case of an emergency at the Shippingport nuclear power plant.
“They just don’t allow us to go out there and test with the people,” Mr. Hill said. “Do I agree with it? Doesn’t matter. I’m not allowed to do it.”
An FCC working group is trying to develop recommendations on how state and local governments can conduct tests.
Even though the problem has apparently been addressed in West Virginia, that does not necessarily settle Mr. Wolfe’s nerves.
An annual test, Mr. Wolfe said, “not only allows us to be sure it’s working properly but it also helps educate the public that if you get this type of message or hear this type of sound on your phone this is what you need to do.”
Jonathan D. Silver: jsilver@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1962 or on Twitter @jsilverpg.
First Published: January 20, 2015, 5:00 a.m.