The Department of Homeland Security is revamping a little-used, decades-old system for alerting the public to emergencies so that it can push alerts to Web sites, e-mail boxes and wireless phones, and customize alerts based on location, assuming anything other than “This is a test” gets sent at all.

In 2004, DHS announced it was testing the Digital Emergency Alert System, building on the existing Emergency Alert System which notifies people of emergencies by television and radio, to expand alerts to digital television, wireless phones and other devices. It conducted a successful test in Washington, D.C., in 2005, and is now rolling out the system nationwide, beginning with the Gulf states hit by Hurricane Katrina last year.

But it may be a long while before emergency alerts from the government start appearing on your phone. The initial rollout is going only to state government officials and emergency responders, to be complete by the end of 2007 (they hope). Only after that will they think about letting everyone else in on the national emergency warnings.

But it’s such cool technology! Much cooler than duct tape.

“It goes way beyond television and radio,” which were the first means of mass-notification, said FEMA Director R. David Paulison at a Wednesday demonstration of the new system. “It’s going to be quicker and more efficient.” — Government Executive

In the meantime, homeland security strategist W. David Stephenson suggests that governments should just publish data in standard formats on the Internet for anyone to use, so individuals will be able to subscribe only to the data of interest to them, and be able to build applications on that data much more quickly.

Demonstrating this idea, Stephenson pointed to the District of Columbia itself, which is now publishing a wide variety of data in XML format. Combined with Google Maps, some of this data provides a live map of all road construction in the District.

“This is just the kind of enlightened open government approach that can provide a variety of tools that could be invaluable in a disaster,” Stephenson said.

Instead, it appears that Homeland Security will maintain tight control over the data, keeping the American public in the dark, and forcing them to fend for themselves. And as their response to Hurricane Katrina showed, American individuals and companies can easily coordinate on the ground to bring relief far better than the top-down approach of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.