Interstate coordination. Single point of initiation is not a bad thing.
And as I noted, Congress has a Constitutional mandate to institute procedures for calling out all able-bodied citizens for national protection.
Which emergency of ours in the last 80 years would have benefited from a national warning system?
It's not past emergencies at issue, it's future ones.
Just because you never had a house burn down doesn't mean you get rid of the fire extinguishers.
There is a piece of audio out there on the internet from the early 70’s when the old Emergency Broadcast System accidentally sent out an alert (not a test) on a Saturday morning.
The tape is of some poor announcer at WOWO radio in Ft. Wayne, Indiana having to break in and announce the alert, having absolutely no idea why it was sent. He proceed to very nervously vamp for 7 1/2 minutes, not knowing if Washington, DC had been destroyed or if the Russkies were about to come parachuting in to Northeast Indiana.
Finally he gets word that the alert was sent in error, to his great relief. I think the original idea of this system was to prevent THAT from ever happening again.
That being said, I still do not trust it in this government’s hands.
“And as I noted, Congress has a Constitutional mandate to institute procedures for calling out all able-bodied citizens for national protection. “
I think the current procedures for calling out the citizenry are adequate. For instance, FedGov does not need to call out the citizens of Alaska when there is a Florida hurricane. What problem do you foresee that would be helped by a presidential mandate for the citizens to assemble and act? As far as I know, the last time such a command was given was during the War of 1812, when Congress was in retreat from Washington.
This system will be used for far more mundane things than national emergencies, I fear. I heard mention of Amber Alerts, which by their nature are large-local or at most cover a 3-state block.
Any truly national problem, like an asteroid strike or 900 incoming thermonuclear RVs, won’t be helped much by a warning system. “Everyone on the West Coast, you have 30 days to move to Ohio (if our projections are correct) so get going!” Any national emergency will be politicized, as well. Look at BioWatch- by the time a true biowar threat is identified and checked, tens of thousands will already be ill and that number rising, the delays mostly due to political risk management.
As for future emergencies, I have seen no analysis of the inadequacies of our current systems, just a push for a new centralized one.