During Sudden Onset Crises, the Public Needs Intelligence to Base Response Decisions On

By Deborah J. Link, Ph.D.

July 31, 2025

Here we are again...still reading news headlines about two things that often happen together, no warnings and deaths. Wasn’t the basis for the concept of alerting people when there is an emergency to save lives? Now there are 134 people dead, with 116 of them in Kerr County, Texas (NBCDFW, 2025). There is an ongoing issue in local jurisdictions across the U.S. that is virtually unknown to most who live in the U.S. Many local jurisdictions lack the capability to warn everyone within their jurisdiction when a sudden onset emergency occurs (Link, 2025). To make things worse, the local authorities are not providing this information to those who need it. People assume they will receive alerts when an emergency occurs, and information needs to be conveyed to everyone who may be affected. We are unaware that we may assume too much.

In Kerr, Texas, following the flooding in July this year, it seems that residents are finally reaching a point where they are not interested in hearing excuses. “’Why weren’t we notified’ Kerr County Council Member Rocky Hawkins asked” (Gamboa et al., 2025, para. 6). Another official, Jordan, stated “he would have welcomed a call to say, ‘Get up! Your town’s flooding’” (Gamboa et al., 2025, para. 9). Further, the town had the alerting software CodeRed, but one official told NBC News that CodeRed was not top of mind when they were trying to evacuate people at 5 am (Gamboa et al., 2025, para. 22). The purpose of alerting software is to alert people so they can have the information needed to get to safety. People need to be informed about preparing for disasters. This is not a new concept and is a concept that has been a focus for many years. A newer concept, or just a rephrasing of the preparedness concept, is the idea of resilience that is now more of a focus. However, the issue of lack of warning capability at the local level has been an ongoing issue for many years. It is likely that resilience efforts dissipate when everyone who needs information to stay safe, i.e., an alert, is not going to be received.

For more background on this issue, there is an important Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that provides both a summary and the status of emergency alerting in the U.S., leading up to 2020: Emergency Alerting: Agencies Need to Address Pending Applications and Monitor Industry Progress on System Improvements (GAO-20-294, 2020). In the report there are seven case studies where alerts were issued and some cases where alerts were not issued and why, are reviewed (Link, 2025). There are many other recent cases where people reported not receiving any warning about an emergency in their areas like the fires in the historic town of Lahaina, on the island of Maui Hawaii in 2023 where 102 people perished. Also, the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment and HAZMAT incident. Often times, local authorities resort to using social media to alert the public. A resin plant in Brunswick, Georgia, caught on fire in April 2023 and notice of the fire, a shelter in place order, and an evacuation order of nearby residents, was issued using Facebook (Link, 2025). The problem dates back further. In 2014, the water crisis in Flint, Michigan is an example where authorities did not alert the public of problems with the water, the cause of the problem, nor the complaints of residents when children started becoming sick from the lead in the water (Link, 2025). That crisis continued for many years, until 2019.

Erik J. Dahl developed a theory titled Theory of Preventive Action. It is a useful theory to apply to the frequent occurrence of a lack of public warning information when there is a sudden onset or unfolding crisis-when it is critical that the public receives needed information to plan and make response decisions about the crisis (Link, 2025). Dahl’s Theory of Preventive Action argues that for intelligence to be beneficial to prevent terrorist attacks or other tactical-level incidents, a precise, tactical-level warning must be provided, and should also be combined with a high level of receptivity on the part of decisionmakers (Ramsay et al., 2021). Importantly, Dahl stated that this theory places importance on the consumer of intelligence, which is who will decide what should be done related to the warning (Ramsay et al., 2021). Without warnings, we are left without critical information to base our response decisions upon. In many local jurisdictions across the U.S., alerting the public seems to not be not a high priority, however, lives depend upon this critical, timely information. At a minimum, the public needs to be made aware when there is a lack of alerting capability where they live, so they can plan accordingly for themselves and their families.

When considering improvements to local jurisdiction alerting, there are two important considerations when taking the past losses and the above discussion on Dahl’s theory into account. First, at a minimum, residents in every jurisdiction need to be informed about the status of alerting in their jurisdiction. Local officials should use a proactive and aggressive public campaign approach to convey this information to the public. Second, there should be a highly scrutinized approach to development of actual, useful crisis communications plans. These are specific plans that are almost nonexistent. This type of plan includes actual steps taken to alert the public, in writing, and able to be used as a step-by-step guide when the need arises to send an alert immediately. These plans also include approving authorities for the alerts, as well as templates for common or more likely emergency or crisis scenarios for each particular jurisdiction, i.e. using the Emergency Operations Plans or Threats Analysis already completed as a basis for these templates with of course flexibility built in to the templates to adjust wording to match the imminent or ongoing crisis that the alert is needed for.

Finally, something to think about is that if social media will be the primary means to alert the public in a particular jurisdiction, and the local jurisdiction notifies the public of this fact, a question to ask is, how will the public know to look for an alert on social media when they have no idea that anything is happening? An important FEMA PrepTalk by the late Dr. Dennis Mileti is titled, Modernizing Public Warning Messaging (2018). PrepTalks are similar to TED Talks, but are geared toward Emergency Management. This PrepTalk is an important discussion by a well-known expert on the topic of the importance of being able to get alerts to everyone who needs the information, and in a timely manner. This is an issue that does not need any further case studies. As a nation, we need to move on and implement change, since sadly we have more than enough cases to look to for guidance. If we don’t implement any changes, and much change is needed and has been needed for at least a decade, then the previous loss of life related to this issue so far has been in vain.

References

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). (2018). PrepTalks: Dr. Dennis Mileti: Modernizing public warning messaging. YouTube. PrepTalks: Dr. Dennis Mileti "Modernizing Public Warning Messaging"

Gamboa, S., Ortiz, E., Arkin, D. (2025, July 24). Leaders of Texas town hit by floods frustrated over lack of answers from top emergency official. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ingram-officials-frustrated-lack-answers-emergency-coordinator-texas-f-rcna220239

Link, D. (2025). Notifying the public in crisis situations [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Liberty University.

NBCDFW Staff (2025, July 17). Death toll in Texas July 4 flooding climbs to 135 people, including 116 in Kerr County area. NBCDFW. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/texas-flood-briefing-july-17/3887964/

Ramsay, J.D., Cozine, K., & Comiskey, J. (2021). Theoretical foundations of homeland security: Strategies, operations, and structures. Routledge.