If you send or receive wildfire or hurricane alerts and warnings, you know that there has been a shift to the use of zones to highlight the location of the the area that should prepare to evacuate or evacuate. Software has been developed that allows public safety personnel to pre-establish zones, publish that information to webpages, publicize that information to local community members encouraging them to "know your zone" and to sign up for opt in alerts. When zones are selected, those opt in alerts can go directly to the zones that are in danger, facilitating a quick and easy alerting process that can deliver timely information to people in need. It also reduces the resource strain on public safety organizations that have the responsibility of alerting, and hopefully moving, people who are at risk.
I've wondered for some time how effective the use of zones is - especially for those who don't opt in to the warnings, or who receive an alert like a WEA that includes a zone in the message without much additional information.
I think it is safe to say that if you live in an area where wildfire is threatening your residence, you're likely to be motivated to 1) pay attention, 2) learn the language of evacuation warning and evacuation order (or level 1, level 2, level 3; or ready, set, go), 3) learn which zone your home falls into, 4) and have multiple ways to receive a warning - including opt in messaging and WEA. But what if you don't? What if you have limited experience with wildfire, have never had to evacuate, and haven't paid attention to this new movement towards zone language? Then what?
Watching the wildfires unfold again in Northern California, we also see the increased use of zones to alert people. In the example messages below, each zone includes a three-letter abbreviation, followed by a number. The message indicates that the Sheriff is "advising" an evacuation order; this language is included in both the 360-character message (top) and the 90-character message (bottom).
Not being familiar with the area, I did a little online searching to learn more about the zones and Google showed me a Facebook page for the Sheriff's Office that provided additional details about the meaning of an evacuation order and ways to learn about zones through their software application. The software allows users to enter an address in order to learn what zone their home is in; users can also sign up to receive opt-in alerts at that time. This all seems like a strategy that can help to relieve a lot of uncertainty for message receivers and also decrease the effort needed from the Sheriff's office. But I there is room for improvement.
Perhaps the simplest thing to do is to add a url to the end of the message, directing receivers to the Sheriff's Facebook page or to the software application in order to interpret the content that is included in the message. Believe it or not, there is a LOT of jargon in these messages (advising; evac order; zones) and it is going to be most familiar to people who are public safety personnel or fully invested in learning this operational language and understanding how to implement it.
Another simple thing to do is to use plain language. For example, define what evacuation warning or order means IN the message. Add the words "PREPARE NOW" or "LEAVE NOW" so that people who may be confused by the words warning versus order don't have to guess if there is still time to prepare or if it is time to go. (If you've seen the examples of taco ingredients versus a fully made taco as an illustration that shows the difference between a weather watch versus a weather warning, you know that people get these concepts confused).
The biggest challenge in this message is the use of zones. i wish I had a better answer than to use these combinations of letters and numbers - social science researchers have found that people do not remember their zone when they it is needed and that's not a good thing for a fast moving threat. Using street names, neighborhoods, and landmarks is a more common way to identify the location of areas at risk.
In the opinion of the Warn Room editor, we need more research in this area. While using zones clearly makes the process easier for public safety officials, is it making the population safer? Should we be relying on people to accurately interpret and act upon jargon in the heat of the moment? Are there better approaches that can achieve both goals (alerting and giving actionable information)? Evidence should be used to help us to make these decisions - in many cases it's a matter of life and death.
For more recommended contents, be sure to download The Warning Lexicon - it's free and offers step-by-step instructions on how to write a better warning message.
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