Inside the Unregulated, Patchwork World of Emergency Alerts

When tornadoes swept through Rockdale County, Georgia, this past spring, residents complained they had little warning. There was a similar silence when Buffalo, New York, was buried in multiple feet of snow in 2022. In Maui, Hawaii, and Paradise, California — the sites of the two deadliest wildfires in modern U.S. history — survivors believe a lack of warning contributed to the loss of dozens of lives.

Each of these disasters was unique, but they also speak to shared, underlying issues that cut to the core of this system. Because when it comes to the who, what, when, where, and why of warnings, there’s no single, official standard. Instead, there is a patchwork of approaches, often relying on a few people shouldering the responsibility to warn thousands or even millions of others. And while money, attention, and energy are being poured into addressing the technological side, the very human challenges of bureaucracy, communication, trust, and fear are often ignored — until the next disaster.