The Wording of Evacuation Alerting

Emergency alerting is critical when it is needed, such as an evacuation. When it is needed, the message needs to be understood by the recipient in the way that the sender intends for it to be received – the timeliness, urgency, seriousness and importance of it. There are many ways to assist with this coding and decoding process in alerting to ensure our message gets through and the behaviour of the recipient is changed to comply with the direction received.

Common terminology is a widely understood concept of communication. We are even practicing it now by speaking a language – we are using common terminology in order to communicate different meanings between each other. We are coding a message through words and sending them to be decoded by another accurately because we were all educated in some capacity on how to speak, in this case, English. The same can be said with any other technical jargon. Every trade and workplace has its own jargon and terminology that you must understand in order to communicate and function in that environment. Some people go to school to learn the terms pre-emptively prior to going into a job so they may function immediately. Some go into the job and must learn it while operating which may affect their performance. The Incident Command System (ICS) even identifies this specifically in its training because it understands the risk of confusion and reduction of effectiveness when it’s not practiced. They in fact define it as “normally used words and phrases-avoids the use of different words/phrases for same concepts, consistency.” (ICS Canada, 2023) So ensuring that everyone is singing off the same sheet of music as some would say, we identify terms and communicate them with people so there’s a common understanding. When it’s widely used across different organizations, these terms should be synchronized.

When we look at common terminology in emergency alerting, in Canada, it’s partially recognized. With Canada not having a national standard, it’s difficult and thus leaves room for provinces to potentially deviate leading to more terminology people must learn and thereby leading to slower decoding if it deviates from the norm. In Canada, there are two main emergency alerting terms used for evacuations – evacuation alert and evacuation order. Evacuation alerts let residents know they may need to leave their homes and provide time for residents to pack some belongings, get their pets ready to travel, fuel up their cars, and request transportation support for those who do not have it (Collins & Blackburn, 2023, p. 30). Evacuation order lets residents know that they now have to leave their homes under a state of local emergency (SOLE) (Collins & Blackburn, 2023, p. 30). Below is a table detailing what term each province uses in Canada.

Province	Preparation	Evacuate
British Columbia	Alert	Order
Alberta	Alert	Order
Saskatchewan	Alert	Order
Manitoba	Alert	Order
Ontario	Varies; Ottawa – Alert	Order
Quebec	Notice (Avis)	Order
New Brunswick	Advisory	Alert
Nova Scotia	Halifax – Alert	Order
Prince Edward Island	No province-wide published label	No province-wide published label
Newfoundland & Labrador	Alert	Order
Yukon	Alert	Order
Northwest Territories	Alert	Order
Nunavut	No province-wide published label	Order

As you can see, there is a lot of consistency in terminology with a few exceptions. Most provinces use evacuation alert for the preparation phase of an evacuation and evacuation order when the time comes for people to evacuate. One province I was unable to obtain clear information from – Prince Edward Island (PEI). I attempted to search for any instances of PEI having to evacuate a community and turned up with nothing involving the alerting system – if you have an example, please send it my way! Another province, New Brunswick, differs significantly from the rest of Canada. In fact, it creates a confusing situation for anyone who is coming into the province who has experienced these evacuation notifications before. In New Brunswick, a new term is used for the preparation phase of an evacuation, evacuation advisory, and when it’s time to evacuate, they will issue an evacuation alert. This creates a massive issue with compliance to evacuation instructions for people from outside of the province or those who are familiar with the terminology used by other provinces.

The use of advisory over alert and alert over order also have an impact on people to an extent. We know from psychology that words mean things. A study done by Loftus and Palmer (1974) demonstrated that a single verb (“smashed” vs “hit”) changed perceived speed and later memory. This shows us that word choices shift perceived severity which is central to evacuation messaging. We know and understand this as demonstrated by Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) weather alerts we receive across the country – statements, advisories, watches and warnings (ECCC, n.d.). A statement is the least urgent; an advisory is less severe but could still significantly impact Canadians; a watch could cause safety concern; and a warning is urgent that severe weather is either occurring or will occur. What is helpful is that it is clearly stated on their website on what each means. Using this understanding in generating a perceived risk, we know that people are more likely to evacuate when they believe they are in danger and evacuation will reduce that danger (Lindell et al., 2019). Within this perceived risk, there are at least two components that contribute to perceived risk – a belief that one will experience the hazard event and the belief that one will be adversely affected if it occurs (Lindell et al.). The greater the perception of risk, the more likely people will evacuate.

It’s overall important to know how the words you use will affect the behaviour of others, especially in an emergency management role. While there are different ways to do things, having a standard common set of terminology that everyone uses benefits more than those who are professionals; it benefits those who are trying to understand the meanings of those terms as well. While messaging is about coding as a sender and decoding as a receiver, if there isn’t a standard understanding between the two then the message will not be congruent and the action you may be looking to achieve may not occur. It’s especially important in emergencies to use clear and common terms when communicating to the public because you never know when someone’s life may depend on understanding that message and how much extra work you may be generating if they do not understand that message.  

1.      Collins, C. J., & Blackburn, D. (2023). Introduction to Emergency Management in Canada (p. 30). Emond Publishing. https://emond.ca/Store/Books/Introduction-to-Emergency-Management-in-Canada VitalSourceemond.ca

2.      Lindell, M. K., Murray-Tuite, P., Wolshon, B., & Baker, E. J. (2019). Large-Scale Evacuation: The Analysis, Modeling, and Management of Emergency Relocation from Hazardous Areas. CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315119045 RoutledgeTaylor & Francis

3.      Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(5), 585–589. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(74)80011-3 ScienceDirect

4.      ICS Canada. (2023, May). Glossary of terms. https://icscanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ICS-Canada-Glossary-May-2023.pdf Incident Command System Canada

5.      Environment and Climate Change Canada. (n.d.). Public alerting program. https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/general-marine-weather-information/regional-guides/public-alerting-program.html