Emergency Warning: We really, really mean it
There's an interesting experiment being conducted by the National Weather Service. Five weather stations in Kansas and Missouri will be using plain terminology to warn people of impending hurricanes.
One of the interesting phenomena we see in emergency management is that people do not respond to warnings immediately but seek verification before acting. They tend to look out the window, consult friends, check in with social media – in short anything but take the public warning at face value. This is particularly true where authorities have to err on the side of caution and issue warnings for events that seldom occur.
To counter this, the weather stations will be couching their warnings in serious, straight-sounding language. Instead, "a tornado watch has been issued for the towns of…" residents will hear something along the lines of:
THIS IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TORNADO WITH COMPLETE DEVASTATION LIKELY. … SEEK SHELTER NOW! … MOBILE HOMES AND OUTBUILDINGS WILL OFFER NO SHELTER FROM THIS TORNADO — ABANDON THEM IMMEDIATELY."
I'm not sure how well this will work. It's incredibly difficult to shock people out of their complacency, especially if these warnings have the same limited likelihood of occurrence as previous ones. But trying to communicate actual risk to people is always a good thing and a much better approach than a warning that just says a tornado of unspecified magnitude might occur. I'll be very interested to see the results of this experiment.
Having the emergency alerts in clear English rather than technical speak would be a wonderful idea. I for one can never remember which is more serious the warning or the watch. I’m not sure it will change how most people react to them however, I think most Americans who haven’t lived through tornados/earthquakes/hurricanes tend to assume they’ll never have to worry about it so they ignore the emergency alerts.
Your point about the confusion between watch and warning is well taken. I think it’s a fairly common problem. I know it was for me when I started in this profession. The terms have precise meanings for forecasters but are generally meaningless to the average person. Also, they give no indication as to the degree of severity. This new method of warning should help with both of these issues.