The recent tornadoes in Minneapolis are another reminder that urban areas are not immune from unpredictable natural disasters.  Government officials representing urban jurisdictions have historically faced a myriad of challenges when issuing alerts and warnings in cities throughout America.

With bustling activity moving in multiple directions, it is almost impossible to think alerts and warnings messages will reach citizens at the same time.  The upshot for officials is how to issue alerts and warnings information to large numbers of people, with different backgrounds and pre-occupied with managing individual day-to-day responsibilities at a fast pace.

While advancements in technology enable officials to reach more people in less time,  metro landscapes provide numerous challenges for getting messages to target audiences.    For example, underground subways often have limited wireless coverage and expansive infrastructure can make it difficult to transmit and receive communications from almost any floor of an office building.  And nationwide, public expectations have increased for more real-time updates, including voice, video, and data messaging.

During emergencies, these complexities are compounded when preparing for the following everyday scenarios:

• Cars, trains, and buses, moving underground and over roadways,
• Restaurants, stadiums and parks, filled in every corner, and
• Churches, banks, hospitals, schools, and office buildings, occupied on each floor.

The amount of transactions made every second is what makes our urban areas so magnificent and also so difficult to disseminate alerts and warnings with so many spontaneous moving parts.

Given how city neighborhoods often require targeted information during emergencies, it is essential for alerts and warnings information to reach high traffic footprints and densely populated zones, where the flow of communications is often inhibited due to lost signals related to atmospheric imbalances, power disruptions, and outdated antenna and tower locations.   Despite these challenges, metro governments must adapt to identify new approaches for the public to internally accept a default setting  that reaffirms what alerts and warnings officials are trying to communicate in times of a crisis.   Increased preparedness campaigns and partnerships with the business and non-governmental communities are needed to shape behaviors of the consequences of missing an alert and warning while managing or juggling day-to-day responsibilities.

Additional research is needed to help industry and governments adapt to the complexities of issuing city alerts and warnings.  Among the new approaches to increase public awareness, officials should evaluate installing more “radio advisory systems,” in public spaces, similar to radio stations found around airports and universities and developing “information kiosks” that can dispense alerts and warnings information at restaurants, metro stops, and shops.

Collectively, metropolitan governments must view this as a campaign to educate the public on how they can access information, when “on the go” and away from home.   The ultimate goal is to persuade people ahead of time of where to find alerts and information and make it second nature to not think about the new realities of how alerts and warnings are issued, but to always understand the importance of the message.

We welcome your thoughts on how metro areas can issue smarter alerts and warnings and overcome the barriers inherent to our magnificent urban communities.