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Writer's picturejeannettesutton

What is this unnamed hazard that you warn of?


WEA issued on 4/20/23 for a brush fire


Decades ago, disaster researchers Mike Lindell and Ron Perry developed the Protective Action Decision Model, which informs our understanding of the pre-decisional and decisional factors that affect protective action taking. In this, they identify environmental cues (such as smoke that can be smelled or seen) as well as social cues (such as a warning message from an official or unofficial source). These are important factors for alerting authorities to take into consideration when they are designing messages to warn about imminent threat. Those who sent this message must have been counting on other cues that would help their message receivers know what had a "potential to spread" and why that spreading would result in the need for evacuation. However, in instances where such environmental cues are not available, such a message would have been entirely ineffective. Important to note - this content is exactly 90 characters and was issued for both a 90 and 360 character WEA. There was an additional 270 characters available to message writers to craft a COMPLETE message that would include the: -hazard -hazard impact -location -guidance recommendations -time -message sender.

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