National Warning System
American telephone system for emergency alert coordination
The National Warning System (NAWAS) is an automated telephone system used to convey warnings to United States–based federal, state and local governments, as well as the military and civilian population. The original mission of NAWAS was to warn of an imminent enemy attack or an actual accidental missile launch upon the United States. NAWAS still supports this mission but the emphasis is on natural and technological disasters. Organizations are able to disseminate and coordinate emergency alerts and warning messages through NAWAS and other public systems by means of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System.
NAWAS is operated and fully funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Today, the system consists of what is essentially a 2200+ telephone party line. The phone instruments are designed to provide protection for lightning strikes so they may be used during storms. The interconnecting lines provide some protection by avoiding local telephone switches. This ensures they are available even when the local system is down or overloaded. NAWAS has major terminals at each state Emergency Operations Center and State Emergency Management Facility.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “National Warning System” is american telephone system for emergency alert coordination. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through National, Warning and System, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “National Warning System” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.