EBS: IPAWS Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) 2.0

Updated September 29, 2023 20:01

Diane McCoy

Overview

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will introduce the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) 2.0 update. WEA 2.0 focuses on adding language support for short-text and long-text messages in both English and Spanish.

Everbridge upgraded the message sending workflow for the WEA publishing channel to support the changes being made by WEA 2.0.

NOTE:
As of October 28, 2019, FEMA has not rolled out their IPAWS/WEA 2.0 changes. However, you are still able to send IPAWS/WEA messages.

WEA Notification Changes

English 360-character

You can use the optional text box to send notifications to the WEA channel with up to 360 characters in the English language. If left empty, IPAWS WEA 2.0 will copy the text entered in the required WEA English Message text box when the message is sent.

Spanish 90-character

You can use the optional text box to send notifications to the WEA channel with up to 90 characters in the Spanish language. If left empty, IPAWS WEA 2.0 will copy the text entered in the required WEA English Message text box when the message is sent.

Spanish 360-character

You can use the optional text box to send notifications to the WEA channel with up to 360 characters in the Spanish language. If left empty, IPAWS WEA 2.0 will copy the text entered in the Spanish 90-character text box when the message is sent.

NOTE: This text box is disabled unless the Spanish 90-character text box is being used.

WEA Handling

The WEA Handling CAP field is now available to use in IPAWS notifications.

There are four WEA Handling values:

Imminent Threat
Amber
Public Safety
WEA Test

Each value is dependent on the Event Name selected for the notification. For a full list of the Event Name types and their relation to WEA Handling see the article: WEA Handling and Event Name Guidelines.

WEA Handling Values

Each WEA Handling value defaults to the Urgency, Severity, and Certainty listed below:

WEA Handling Value	Urgency	Severity	Certainty
Imminent Threat	Immediate Expected	Extreme Severe	Observed Likely
Amber	Immediate Expected	Extreme Severe	Observed Likely
Public Safety	Immediate Expected	Extreme Severe	Observed Likely
WEA Test	Immediate Expected	Extreme Severe	Observed Likely

Selecting Both WEA & EAS Channels

If both the WEA and EAS channels are selected for a notification and WEA Test is selected for WEA Handling, only three event types will be available:

Practice/Demo Warning
Required Weekly Test
Required Monthly Test

This is enforced when selecting WEA Test and it is meant to safeguard message senders from launching an unintended test message to the public while carriers are transitioning to WEA 2.0.

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