[NJTechDiv] An emergency alert test will sound Oct. 4 on all U.S. cellphones, TV's and radios

[Mario Brusco]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/emergency-alert-test-october-4-2023-fema-fcc-cellphones-tvs-radios/ 
<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/emergency-alert-test-october-4-2023-fema-fcc-cellphones-tvs-radios/>

An emergency alert test will sound Oct. 4 on all U.S. cellphones, TV's 
and radios. Here's what to expect.

By Emily Mae Czachor, October 2, 2023 / 2:30 PM / CBS News.

Your electronic devices may alarm you on Wednesday afternoon — but 
there's a reason for that.

A nationwide test of the federal emergency alert system will be 
broadcast at approximately 2:20 p.m. EDT to cellphones, televisions and 
radios across the United States at around the same time.

Most Americans with wireless cellular devices will receive an emergency 
alert message on their phones, as will most whose televisions or radios 
are on when the test occurs.

What is an emergency alert?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will conduct Wednesday's test in 
coordination with the Federal Communications Commission. Emergency alert 
messages that make up the test are divided into two groups — the 
Emergency Alert System (EAS) for radios and televisions, and the 
Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) for wireless phones — although both are 
scheduled to happen at once.

Wednesday will mark the seventh nationwide test of the Emergency Alert 
System. Six previous tests were conducted over the years between 
November 2011 and August 2021. This will be the third nationwide test of 
wireless alerts, and the second nationwide test transmitted to all 
cellphones, FEMA said in a statement.

As the Wireless Emergency Alert test is sent out to phones, the 
Emergency Alert System test will be sent out to televisions and radios.

"With the combination, you're going to catch a wide swath of people," 
said Joseph Trainor, a core faculty member at the University of 
Delaware's Disaster Research Center, who studies the design of disaster 
warning systems and how they operate, with a particular focus on mobile 
warning systems and smart warning systems. Trainor has worked with 
government agencies before, in the U.S. and abroad, to develop their 
emergency warning systems and procedures.

"We know that they are effective systems," Trainor told CBS News. "Like 
any system, there are strengths and weaknesses. How many characters you 
can use, how much you can transmit, how fast you can get it out. Every 
system has limits, and that's why we tell people, when we are giving 
advice about building warning systems, you don't ever want to rely on 
just one thing."

How is the wireless test going to work?

The wireless portion of the test will be launched through FEMA's 
Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, which the agency describes 
as "a centralized internet-based system administered by FEMA that 
enables authorities to send authenticated emergency messages to the 
public through multiple communications networks." It will be 
administered using a code sent to cellphones, according to FEMA.

Wireless alerts are created by authorized federal, state, local, tribal 
and territorial government agencies, and sent to participating wireless 
providers through FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, a 
platform that unifies national alert systems for a range of mediums and 
allows officials to send authenticated emergency messages quickly to the 
public through multiple communications networks, including television, 
phone and radio.

Wireless providers that participate in the integrated public system then 
dispatch alerts from cell towers to compatible phones in geo-targeted areas.

"The idea is that all of these systems are trying to work together to 
get information out, in as many ways as possible, to the right people," 
Trainor told CBS News. "So that folks have the information to make good 
choices about the risks around them."

Trainor noted that research into wireless alerts, like texts, show they 
tend to be "very good at getting people's attention."

"When your cellphone makes a noise, you look," he said.

FEMA says no personal data is collected from anyone's devices in the 
process.

How long is the wireless emergency alert test?

Cell towers will broadcast the emergency alert test for 30 minutes, 
starting at approximately 2:20 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, but each phone 
should only receive it once.

During that half-hour, wireless phones that are turned on, not in 
"airplane mode," and compatible with the alerts should receive a test 
message, as long as they are located within a certain range of an active 
cell tower and their wireless provider participates, FEMA said. All 
major wireless providers participate in FEMA's wireless alert system. 
Some older devices may not be compatible.

FEMA notes that if you're on a phone call at the time of the alert, the 
message and tone will be delayed until you hang up.

People who receive the test alert on their phones will see a message 
that reads: "THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert 
System. No action is needed."

The alert will be translated automatically when it appears on cellphones 
where ose language settings are set to Spanish. That message will read: 
"ESTA ES UNA PRUEBA del Sistema Nacional de Alerta de Emergencia. No se 
necesita acción."

To make the wireless test more accessible for people with disabilities, 
alerts are "accompanied by a unique tone and vibration," according to FEMA.

Is it possible to opt out of the wireless test?

People can elect not to receive certain emergency alert messages to 
their cellphones from local authorities, or in some instances, simply 
decide whether to subscribe or not to a specific set of emergency alerts 
put out by a particular agency. On the other hand, it is not possible to 
opt out of the upcoming test of the national wireless alert system.

"Part of the reason why the system works the way it does, is that a 
cellphone has the ability to pick up broadcast signals," Trainor said. 
He noted that the integrated public alert system relies on broadcast 
technology that transfers information about emergencies to cell phone 
towers, and each of those towers then beams the information out to 
whichever wireless devices are geographically within its reach.

FEMA's upcoming test recently sparked a wave of conspiracy 
theories online, which are not based on reality and misrepresent how the 
technology works.

How will the test work for TVs and radios?

The Emergency Alert System test is scheduled to launch at the same time 
as the wireless portion, but will only last for one minute.

When it launches, the test will interrupt regular television and radio 
programming, regardless of which channel you're watching or which 
station you're tuned into, to broadcast a message that says: "This is a 
nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, issued by the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency, covering the United States from 14:20 to 
14:50 hours ET. This is only a test. No action is required by the public."

The upcoming test of the Emergency Alert System "will be similar to the 
regular, monthly EAS test messages with which the public is familiar," 
said FEMA.

Why is the alert system being tested?

Since 2015, FEMA has been required under federal law to test the 
Integrated Public Alert and Warning System at least once every three 
years, and those tests can involve the Emergency Alert System, wireless 
alert system, and other alerts and warnings.

Wednesday's test will evaluate the technological capabilities of the 
national alert system to reach and inform as many people as possible in 
case of a widespread emergency. A backup date of Wednesday, Oct. 11, 
will become the test date if other emergencies, like extreme weather, 
prevent it from going forward as planned on Oct. 4.

"If at some point the time comes that we need to put a wireless 
emergency alert to the entire nation, for some really serious, 
catastrophic event, the ability to send out messages in little places, 
smaller counties, smaller geographic areas, is not the same as having 
the capacity to distribute those messages across the entire system," 
Trainor explained. "So, one of the reasons that you might do something 
like this is to test the technological limits of the system, to make 
sure that it's available in that way."

The test could also help raise public awareness about what to do in a 
national emergency, similar to the ways in which running a fire drill 
inside an office building or a school helps familiarize people with the 
process of an evacuation.

"When an alert comes in like this, it makes people ask, 'What is this? 
What am I doing here?'" Trainor said. "And there's a natural process for 
people when it comes to warnings, we sometimes call it milling, where 
they have to kind of process it, and make sense of what's going on, and 
decide if they're going to do something. You know, 'What is this thing? 
Is it real?'"

Exposure to emergency alert tests may prepare people to act quickly in 
the event of a real emergency, he added.

"Warning systems and alert systems, they get you started," Trainor 
continued. "But there's a human decision process and, if it's the first 
time you've ever seen one in a real event, it's going to take you longer 
to make sense of what it is, and get the information you need, and 
process it to be able to make decisions."