Commonwealth Watch and Warning Center

PEMA’s Commonwealth Watch and Warning Center (CWWC) is located at PEMA headquarters in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The mission of the CWWC is to maintain 24/7 situational awareness of all hazards – either natural or human-caused – that may require state response or may be of interest to PEMA leadership. It also serves as the commonwealth’s warning point to alert citizens and notify other governmental, non-governmental, and private partner agencies of emergent critical information concerning life safety and property preservation. 

How Does It Work?

The CWWC receives incident notifications primarily from county public safety answering points (911 centers) or county emergency management officials.

Counties are required to report a wide range of incidents to the state. Additionally, private sector entities submit reports of hazardous material incidents as required by regulation.

Information received is analyzed, managed, and distributed to appropriate federal and state agencies, volunteer organizations and private sector partners to provide the necessary reporting and aid effective decision making.

The CWWC distributes daily operations reports to partners; those reports are also available to the public.

Watch Officers

The CWWC is staffed daily by professional watch officers with a variety of emergency service backgrounds, such as military veterans, 911 center operators, and county or local emergency service responders.

As the commonwealth’s central reporting point, watch officers continually maintain situation awareness on all hazards affecting our 67 counties and are prepared to quickly initiate a state level response when necessary.