Lesson 1: Anatomy of a CAP Alert Message: Three Important Trigger Elements

Three Important Trigger Elements

As mentioned previously, urgency, severity, and certainty, are key elements used to emphasize the importance of an alert. Their values indicate:

Urgency <urgency> - when to take protective action
Severity <severity> - severity of impacts the event will have on life and property
Certainty <certainty> - how certain it is that the event will happen

In many systems, if the top two values are selected for all three elements, alerts are issued.

Trigger elements

Listen to Eliot Christian speak to the importance of these elements:

Video segment of interest: 07:13 to 08:32