Your jail cell phone will receive a national alert today, October iii, at around 2:eighteen pm ET. It'south but a test, so in that location'southward nothing to worry about. Hither's what y'all need to know most these "presidential" alerts.

What are Wireless Emergency Alerts?

This is the US government nosotros're talking about here, then get ready for some acronyms. We'll endeavor to keep them to a minimum, though.

The Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) arrangement proper was created in 2012, but it's really been around longer than that. The FCC proposed and created the alert network in 2007 in response to an human activity passed by Congress in 2006—the Warning, Warning, and Response Network (WARN) Act. Information technology was originally named the Personal Localized Alerting Network (PLAN), was subsequently renamed the Commercial Mobile Alarm Organization (CMAS), and is now finally the WEA.

The idea behind the WEA is to be able to deliver alerts of different kinds to people all over the US but to likewise exist able to target them to specific geographic regions when necessary. Correct now, in cooperation with major wireless carriers, FEMA can evangelize alerts nationally or to an area as small-scale equally a unmarried county. They do this using a organisation known every bit the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). IPAWS is designed every bit a way to coordinate public condom alerts at the national level, whether those alerts are intended for the entire nation or a more targeted local area.

Through IPAWS, FEMA and other agencies (like NOAA and the White Business firm) can effect public safety alerts through a number of different systems:

  • WEA: The WEA delivers alerts to cell phones.
  • EAS: The Emergency Alert System delivers alerts via radio and television.
  • IPAWS-NOAA Gateway: This is used to deliver alerts to weather radios.
  • IPAWS News Feed: This is used to evangelize alerts to internet applications and websites.

It's a robust system that helps ensure public safety alerts can reach a large percentage of the population.

Okay, So What is a Presidential Warning?

IPAWS allows for three bones types of alerts:

  • Presidential Alerts: These alerts are (by constabulary) but used to alarm the public of national emergencies—think terrorist attacks or widespread natural disasters. The alerts are issued at the direction of the President (or an appointee) and are activated by FEMA representatives.
  • Extreme and Severe Threats: These alerts are used to alert the public to imminent safety threats, and are mostly used for weather warnings. Alerts of this type are typically sent to targeted geographic regions.
  • AMBER Alerts: These alerts notify the public about child abduction. They are also typically sent to targeted geographic regions.

Though the Presidential alert system was established in 2006, this is its showtime nationwide exam.

What Tin I Expect Today?

The exam today is a joint WEA and EAS test. At 2:18 pm ET (or shortly subsequently), you should run into a text-based notification similar to a weather or Amber alert. The text "Presidential Alert" will announced at the top and the message itself volition read:

"THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Warning Arrangement. No activeness is needed."

If you happen to be watching television or listening to the radio around that time, you'll also meet this alert broadcast out over the Emergency Alarm System (EAS). Co-ordinate to FEMA, that message will read:

"THIS IS A Exam of the National Emergency Warning System. This system was developed by broadcast and cable operators in voluntary cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Communications Committee, and local authorities to proceed you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency an official bulletin would accept followed the tone warning you lot heard at the start of this bulletin. A similar wireless emergency alert test bulletin has been sent to all cell phones nationwide. Some cell phones will receive the message; others will not. No activeness is required."

If your telephone is turned off or if you are on an agile phone call at the time of the alert, you lot won't receive the alarm until you turn your phone on again or end your call. It'southward also possible that if you leave your phone off or take a telephone call that lasts for more than xxx minutes, you might not receive the alert at all. That's one of the things they are testing. You also have to be inside range of an agile jail cell tower to receive the alert.

Can I Cake These Alerts?

In accordance with the WARN act, you are allowed to block imminent rubber and Amber alerts, just non Presidential alerts. Y'all tin turn your phone off (and leave information technology off for about one-half an hour) if yous don't want to receive the alarm. You tin can as well set your phone to vibrate.

Want to Learn More?

If you want to know more most any of this stuff, check out the following sites:

  • FEMA's IPAWS National Examination annunciation
  • The FCC's Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) page
  • The FCC's Emergency Alert System (EAS) folio
  • The FCC's Amber Alerts page

Image Credit: Justin Singer/FEMA

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