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Veterans' Day Ceremony - Greer Band |
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| Warning, Alerts and Response Network (WARN) Act |
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I am proud to have authored the Warning, Alerts and Response Network (WARN) Act - a bill that will modernize our national emergency alert system to better respond to natural or man-made disasters and terrorist attacks. This bill, which was unanimously supported by my Senate colleagues, is a major step forward in the fight to secure our homeland.
With an increasingly mobile society, America needs a warning and alert system that keeps pace with people's lives. The WARN Act will create a multi-media, multi-hazard alert system that will build off the current emergency alert system and incorporate the over 200 million wireless devices currently in service providing Americans with a system that truly saves lives.
Specifically, the WARN Act will:
- Create within the Department of Homeland Security a National Alert System that will ensure that regardless of where an individual is or what kind of communication technologies they are using, they will receive a life-saving alert;
- Create a system that will transmit alerts in response to all threats to public safety, including terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and man-made accidents;
- Establish a network for the transmission of alerts across a broad variety of communication technologies, including wireless communication devices (cell phones, Blackberries, etc.), the internet, digital, analog, cable, and satellite television, and satellite and terrestrial radio, as well as non-traditional media such as public warning sirens;
- Allow alerts only for hazards that pose a grave risk to public health and safety, avoiding the “car-alarm” syndrome;
- Provide all emergency managers in America -- federal, state and local -- with a tool to input alerts into the system and have them directed out to a geographically targeted section of the population;
- Require that alerts provide individuals with instructions on what to do in response to the threat, so as to spur protective action, not panic;
- Have no budget impact. The program is already funded under revenues made available from spectrum auctions; and
- Build on the recommendation of the White House Katrina Report to, “Employ all available 21st Century technologies both to update and utilize the national Emergency Alert System in order to provide the general public with advanced notification of and instruction for disasters and emergencies.”
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Charleston
112 Custom House
200 East Bay St
Charleston, SC 29401
P: 843-727-4525
F: 843-722-4923
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Columbia
1901 Main St
Suite 1475
Columbia, SC 29201
P: 803-771-6112
F: 803-771-6455
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Greenville
105 North Spring St
Suite 109
Greenville, SC 29601
P: 864-233-5366
F: 864-271-8901
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Washington, D.C.
340 Russell
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
P: 202-224-6121
F: 202-228-5143
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