FCC Seeks Comment on New EAS Weather Codes

The FCC is seeking comment on adding three new event codes “covering extreme wind and storm surges” to the EAS system based on a request from the National Weather Service (NWS), said an NPRM issued Friday. The NWS has requested codes for Extreme Wind Warning (EWW), Storm Surge Watch (SSA) and Storm Surge Warning (SSW), the NPRM said. No existing EAS event code “is adequate or acceptable to activate the EAS for an extreme wind warning,” the NPRM said. Although there are codes for hurricanes, they apply to the storm event itself and “are not specifically tailored to warn of extreme sustained surface winds,” the NPRM said. Storm Surge watches and warnings would be issued when there's “a significant risk of life-threatening inundation from rising water moving inland from the ocean,” the NPRM said. A storm surge watch would be issued 48 hours before the event might take place and a warning would be issued 36 hours before. Storm surge is “the leading cause of death in tropical cyclones,” the notice said. “Absent a revision of our EAS rules to allow the NWS to warn the public of these events, we risk unnecessary harm to the public,” the NPRM said. The Media Bureau said it “tentatively concludes” that the new event codes could promote public safety by saving lives. It seeks comment on that conclusion and on whether the new codes would help minimize public confusion, and on the cost of adding them. The NPRM also seeks comment on revising “the territorial boundaries of the geographic location codes for two offshore marine areas,” the item said. The NWS has changed the way it defines two offshore marine areas along the east coast and Gulf of Mexico for the purpose of generating weather alerts, and wants the EAS system to incorporate that change. EAS location code 75 covering “Western North Atlantic Ocean, and along U.S. East Coast, south of Currituck Beach Light, N.C., following the coastline into Gulf of Mexico to Bonita Beach, FL, including the Caribbean,” would become “Western North Atlantic Ocean, and along U.S. East Coast, south of Currituck Beach Light, NC, following the coastline to Ocean Reef, FL, including the Caribbean,” and location code 77 covering “Gulf of Mexico, and along the U.S. Gulf Coast from the Mexican border to Bonita Beach, FL,” would become “Gulf of Mexico, and along the U.S. Gulf Coast from the Mexican border to Ocean Reef, FL,” under the change.