Get Stoked for Wednesday’s Emergency Alert System Test!
Ars Technica has a piece about this Wednesday’s planned nationwide panic. The fear is that the first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System will have people thinking it’s a real emergency — and since it’ll happen just a day after the close approach by asteroid 2005 YU55, a bit of a panic wouldn’t surprise me.
In a piece titled Feds try to prevent War of the Worlds-style panic over national emergency alert, it gets me scratching my head over how this stuff is actually supposed to work in a world where certain people, say, me, get all our information via internet, not through any kind of broadcast or cable.
This Wednesday, November 9, at 2 pm eastern standard time, every TV broadcaster, cable channel, radio station, and satellite radio program from Puerto Rico to Missouri to American Samoa will be interrupted for 30 seconds by the federal government. Don’t panic—there’s no nuclear strike. But if there were a nuclear strike, this is how the feds would spread the word.
It’s the first-ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS), which hopes to provide key information immediately to all Americans in the event of a truly national emergency. This national system will look and sound much like the current (and local) emergency warnings often seen on TV or heard on radio, but the scope is larger and it can be put under the direct control of the President. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Weather Service (NWS) will all coordinate the test, but it’s FEMA that actually transmits the alert code.
…But not to worry! Though such warning messages might look terrifyingly real, they will eventually feature an audio message explaining that this is just a test. The government is still concerned that hearing-impaired users, in particular, might mistake the test for a real alert. The FCC has produced a series of brief ads to notify people about the test, and cable operators have taken to warning people about it on their monthly cable bills (which everyone reads, right?).
[Link.]
I guess the idea is that if it were a real emergency, somebody somewhere would be watching TV and would post about it on Facebook, huh? Hope it’s someone I know…
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