The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, abbreviated as "ALEA", is a law enforcement agency serving the U.S. state of Alabama. It exists within the Executive Branch of State Government to coordinate public safety in Alabama. It was formed on 1 January 2015 by the merger of 12 state law enforcement agencies. The Secretary, its chief executive, is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the Governor of Alabama. ALEA is divided into two functional divisions, the Department of Public Safety and the State Bureau of Investigations. The Secretary of ALEA is responsible for appointing a Director of both divisions, after consultation with the Governor.
After having threatened houses and communication ways, avalanches became a worrying risk for recreational activities in ski resorts or in the backcountry. In France, research started organizing after disasters occurred in 1970 (111 fatalities in 2 avalanches). In addition to observations, modeling experienced a strong development in order to improve risk management between 1990 and 2000: statistical and deterministic models and expert systems. Observation advances allowed producing useful risk maps, but the release time forecasting remains unsatisfactory. No model is able to systematically and accurately predict triggering times and places and avalanche sizes, probably due to the high complexity of slab triggering mechanisms, that belong to the family of so-called critical phenomena. This is why the best results were obtained so far through human experience, that combine field observations and use of simple tools for data recording and exploitation. Artificial intelligence should help experts in complex analysis, and in prevention of inevitable traps arising from subconscious.
