Who Should Warn The Public Of Nuclear War?

This is a very good article, discussing very real emergency management issues.

I said in another post, this topic is worthy of an appropriate congressional debate. The question isn't just public warning for nuclear war, but any threat that exceeds a state or county/local jurisdiction capabilities, or originates from outside the jurisdiction. Tsunamis, tornadoes/hurricanes, etc.

The question is an extension of national conversations of states rights, roles, and responsibilities versus federal roles and responsibilities.

Most of us can generally agree that public alert and warning is a responsibility shared between local/tribal, state, and federal authorities -- and these IPAWS systems have greatly evolved to give us such things as Amber Alerts.

Who is in the position to best determine the appropriate public advice, and who has the authority to give the public instructions -- whether that be "seek shelter immediately", or "head for high ground", or "avoid large structures and areas with falling glass and debris"?

Agreed, a public alert about an inbound missile is very time constrained.

But....does suggesting the feds should be doing that warning, just because the state emergency management agency made a mistake and sent a false alarm, just shift the potential for issuing another false alarm to the feds? They, too, make mistakes and have issued false alerts.

For those interested in following this congressional debate, Senate Bill 2385 is currently wending its way through Congress (see https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2385).

A similar House Resolution was also proposed, and was sent to committee on Tuesday, February 13th (see https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4965/)