Johnson County emergency management urges Iowans to have multiple ways of receiving alerts

Johnson County Emergency Management Coordinator Dave Wilson has been working in the emergency management planning and coordination field since he was 18.

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Wilson, now 57, said emergency management and first responder jobs are not 9-to-5 occupations, and they can prove to be taxing for the workers.

First responders have to learn resilience because they’re exposed to traumatic events “constantly,” he said.

“The public doesn’t realize the trauma that is inflicted in just a week on a public safety person,” Wilson said. “I mean, they're exposed to much more traumatic events than the average person would (be).”

Following the deadly July Fourth flash flooding in central Texas, The Gazette spoke with Wilson about emergency communications and how people can prepare themselves for natural disasters. There has been criticism in Texas that many residents did not receive alerts about the flash flooding, and didn’t have time to move to a safe location.

Wilson noted that Iowa has many resources and programs available, such as Alert Iowa, which counties can use to send emergency communications. Most counties — including Johnson and Linn — are part of the Alert Iowa system. More information about receiving alerts through the system is available on the Iowa Department of Homeland Security website, homelandsecurity.iowa.gov/programs/alert-iowa. Wilson emphasized that residents should have multiple ways of receiving emergency information.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: What types of emergency alerts are used in Iowa?

A: The authorities have permissions to use Cellular Mobile Alerting, which are a system alert, or a Wireless Emergency Alert to bypass all those features that a lot of the public silence on their phones before they go to bed and don't come back to until morning.

The only way to wake up that phone to make them aware of a situation is to send a Wireless Emergency Alert at the highest level, so that the phone's going to go off if they're in the area that you prescribed. If the alerts are set off by an area, say Johnson County, and it's set off by an agency that has the authority to send it as a Wireless Emergency Alert of the highest priority, it'll wake up every phone in that prescribed period of time in that prescribed area.

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Q: What were your initial takeaways from the flooding in Texas?

A: In Texas, people were trying to vilify someone, and I think that's unfair. It's a tragic event that happened down there, and the Cellular Wireless Emergency Alerts went off, but not everyone got them.

The reason not everyone got them is there's a number of ways those can be sent, and depending on how those are sent, it depends on if you can opt out of them. Thinking of Amber Alerts, that's one of those alerts that you can't really opt out of.

Q: What is Iowa’s approach to these alerts? Does it differ from what was used in Texas?

A: Most areas of the U.S. have a layered approach. They have warning sirens that tell people, in certain instances, to go inside and seek more information. Then we also have a layer that alerts your phone. Then we have a layer of alerts that is social media. Because, let's face it, some people don't read the paper anymore and some people never watch the nightly news. They only get their information from apps like TikTok. The last layer is what I consider the “old school” stuff. We do stuff that goes out as a press release or email to TV, radio, and all those legacy information systems.

We always try to communicate that out in the emergency management world, but what we have to recognize is the way people digest information — even emergency information — is much different now than it was 20 years ago. My gut is that Texas does not have a statewide system that covers every county in Texas. We're kind of an anomaly in Iowa. Statewide contracts for emergency cellular messaging (like Alert Iowa) are not universal to all 50 states.

Q: What makes Iowa an anomaly with its Alert Iowa program?

A: Back in 2017 or 2018, Iowa was one of the first states that said “Listen, we're spending more money for counties to have and hold their own individual contracts, and we're not covering 100 percent of the state of Iowa's population.” From the state funding from the Legislature, Iowa bought a contract with state Homeland Security, and we're going to cover all 99 counties that they want to join. We quit paying in Johnson County around that time.

Q: Is there room for improvement with these systems?

A: There's always room for improvement in any system. One of my frustrations is that if you check all the boxes with FEMA Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (a national system for local alerting that provides emergency information to the public through mobile phones using Wireless Emergency Alerts) you get that highest level of authority, but a county or an alert might only be able to send targeted messages to phones that are enabled for alerts.

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Q: You mentioned earlier that many people have cellphones and are on social media, so they receive alerts that way. What else should Iowans be paying attention to during emergencies?

A: You have to have multiple layers of getting your message because there are failures. The more reliant we are on technology, the more we set ourselves up for vulnerability. The internet and every system that exists today, every single one of them, have a vulnerability and can go down. We tell people all the time to have multiple ways of getting a message in the middle of the night.

I have the NOAA Weather Radio on my refrigerator, and the volume set for my alerts is high. It wakes me up throughout the house, and my phone should work and alert me to that. Those are the only two things in the middle of the night that are going to wake me up short of somebody coming beating on my door saying, “Hey, get out now.” And that last way I mentioned is the least efficient way that takes most people the longest time to do.

Q: What do Iowans need to know about emergency alerts in the state?

A: People need to be situationally aware. The first thing I tell my kids is that no matter what they’re doing, be aware of your surroundings. That could be in an area where you feel unsafe, and you think somebody might assault or rob you. It could also be a high weather event area. Be situationally aware of your environment and your surroundings. Don't rely just on your cellphone and don't rely just on social media, because, there's a lot of people spreading disinformation now. Make sure you're getting credible and reliable information, from a trustworthy source.

Also have the old school ways of getting information too. That's why a lot of us push back on turning off AM/FM radio in cars, because that AM/FM radio is a good way for us to send messages out through broadcast media to get to people.

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Q: What else should Iowans know about local emergency services and the work your team does?

A: I don’t care who you are or how long you been in this business, when there’s a loss of life, you are your own worst enemy. You don’t get away from it. People get into public safety into public safety to save lives.

I think the public doesn’t realize the burden you carry with you on that job. Whether it's an officer involved shooting, or a fire, or drowning death, everybody that signed up for this job got it to save lives and help people. When somebody dies, they feel like they failed. You don't get away from the job.

My phone never really stops ringing. I mean, whether you’re police, fire, ambulance, or what your job is in public safety, even in health care, you're subject to recall 24/7. I think you've seen that everybody that's paying attention has noticed that since COVID in 2020, we've seen a huge increase in retirements and exits from the field of public safety and health care, because it's very taxing on your life. You're never truly off duty, and these people take it personally.

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

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Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com