The Emergency Public Warning System was a system used in the province of Alberta, Canada until October 2011, whereby local or provincial authorities could warn the public about impending or current emergencies affecting their area. The system was replaced by the Alberta Emergency Alert but is still in use by the provinces Ontario and British Columbia. The system was proposed by the provincial government after an F4 tornado ripped through Edmonton, Alberta on July 31, 1987, killing 27 and causing millions of dollars in damage.

The Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) is FEMA's national system for local alerting that provides authenticated emergency and life-saving information to the public through mobile phones using Wireless Emergency Alerts, to radio and television via the Emergency Alert System, and on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Weather Radio.

IPAWS allows Alerting Authorities to write their own message using commercially available software that is Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) compliant. The message is then delivered to the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, Open Platform for Emergency Networks (IPAWS OPEN), where it is authenticated and then delivered simultaneously through multiple communication pathways. Through IPAWS, one message is created to reach as many people as possible to save lives and protect property.

State, local, territorial, and tribal alerting systems such as emergency telephone networks, giant voice sirens, and digital road signs may also receive alerts from IPAWS-OPEN, and future alerting technologies and systems can easily be integrated into IPAWS.FEMA established the IPAWS program in 2006 by Presidential Executive Order 13407. Today there are more than 1,500 federal, state, local, tribal and territorial alerting authorities that use IPAWS to send critical public alerts and warnings in their jurisdictions.