ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules up through the FCC EAS Report and Order, released July 11, 2016. It discusses the following topics: Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), Stations exempt from needing some or all EAS equipment, Minimum FCC requirements for EAS, Accessibility rules affecting TV stations, Multilingual EAS alerting, Optional state and local EAS alerting, Emergency alerting in Canada and Emergency alerting resources. A local relay network is a one-to-many distribution system in which each EAS participant has the capability of receiving EAS messages at the same time. In addition to the EAS rules in Part 11, the Commission also imposes requirements in Part 79 regarding the visual and aural broadcast of non-EAS emergency information by TV stations. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers IPAWS access free of charge to state and local authorities, which can be authorized to issue IPAWS alerts after completing FEMA's application process.
