http://m.theleafchronicle.com/topnews/article?a=2011111103001&f=548

"The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will hold a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) on November 9, 2011 at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

This will be the first ever, top-to-bottom nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System... FEMA will transmit the EAS code for national emergencies. The EAS code and alert will be rebroadcast by broadcast stations and other service providers until it has been distributed throughout the entire country and U.S. territories."

Sounds like a great idea but spread the word so 911 doesn't get flooded with calls.

Good thing the Canadians are keeping an eye on the US Emergency Broadcast System.

HJ

LOL@ both Jim and Izzy.

Oooo, my Midland weather radio shows text labels for different kinds of alerts. According to the radio's booklet, there's a code for national emergencies, so that will be an interesting label to see scrolling across my radio's screen that day. I better make sure my batteries aren't dead that day.

NOAA Weather Radio - EAS Test

Awwww, bummer for me and my weather radio.

I've been reading that the original 2 1/2 minute test has been shortened to a half-minute one. Apparently, there is concern that having all radio and TV channels overriden by a 2 1/2 minute test might make people think it's a real emergency.

Actually, I'm surprised that besides bacpacjac's original post, I don't think I've seen or heard any announcements on TV or on any of the radio stations I routinely listen to. Well, no wonder people might be concerned!

Perhaps the hacker group Anonymous can slip in something ominous into the broadcast. Sort of like the character V in the movie V for Vendetta. Actually, the date of the test is not that far off from Guy Fawkes Night...November 5th...

Exactly, most people do that. IMO this exersise serves absolutely no purpose.

Now those cold war era sirens, those were awesome. Bonus points to anyone who knows the difference between a straight tone and a wavy tone.

Straight = Alert (have seen it used as a tornado signal)
Wavy = Attack (the old air raid signal)

LED.. do I get partial credit for remembering the callsign of the local Ground Observer Corps authentication procedure?

Nov. 9 is also the anniversary of Kristalnacht, a/k/a "The night of the broken glass", when in 1938, Nazis went on a countrywide rampage against jewish owned stores and temples. Commonly acknowledged as the begining of the Shoah. Its a bit ironic/spooky.

Bill's got the extra credit. I've always wondered why they still use the straight tone for tornadoes since thats also the test tone. I doubt most people know what those sirens were originally for anyway.




Thats pretty cool Les. Before you mentioned it I hadn't heard of the Ground Observer Corp or the Skywatch program. I had assumed it was all radar based post 1950, especially with the advent of the Nike missle batteries.

I've been hearing about it all week on my local NPR station- they are also using each of the spots to plug have a plan and be prepared.

I'm not worried about anyone flipping out because of the date. I'm more worried about people just flipping out because they can- think War of the Worlds, 1938.

Although, doing a 100 second EAS test on Oct 31, 2038, say at about 8.12pm....

Oct 31, 2038?

HJ

100th anniversary of the Mercury Theater broadcast of War of the Worlds. It was on at 8, and about 12 minutes in most people cruised down the dial from a ventriloquist on the Charlie McCarthy show to a news man taking fire from the martian walkers' heat ray and then- silence.

Bricks dropped.

Ah. Got it.

HJ

Dang if I don't learn something new every time I log in to ETS!

So when in the entire history of the United States would a nationwide alert have been appropriate?

I can see a regional alert, but nationwide? Gimme a break. Even 9/11 was a regional disaster - in the sense that only a regional alert would have been needed. This sounds like a big waste of money. I'm glad I don't watch TV.

The closest we ever came to needing this would have been when the Soviets parked 10,000 warheads off our coasts but that threat went away 20 years ago. Am I missing something?

I agree that we haven't had a reason for a nationwide EAS alert before, and the probability that we'll ever need one is (thankfully) quite low.

However, I come at this from a different perspective: Whatever your emergency plans are, it's very difficult to be sure they work if they aren't ever tested. In the world of IT, you need to not just backup your data but test restoring it from the backup media. You need to not just have business continuity and disaster recovery plans, you need to run test scenarios to see what needs changing. You can have the most perfect plan, processes, procedures and equipment possible, but if you don't practice the training degrades. I have customers that do full-scale backup datacenter tests quarterly.

Should we be having a nationwide EAS test every week? I would say not even every year. But testing it once every few years makes sense to me.

Well, in hindsight, you can make a case for 9/11 being a "regional disaster." At the moment, however, that was far from clear.

I was up early that day, watching CNN. It was a slow newsday - the lead story was about Michael Jordan, until they broke in with a developing story about a plane crash in NYC. With a ringside seat as events unfolded, I kept thinking, "what might happen out here on the west coast? How far will all this reach?"

You may recall that very quickly all planes within the US were grounded immediately. That affected even charter flights to the Channel Islands so we had park personnel staying longer than anticipated. To me, that would qualify as an event that was national in scope.

My wife had not been watching TV, but when she arose later to take our daughter to school, I informed her, and said, "Be careful out there. Bad things are happening."

9/11 was only regional in hindsight. At the time it was unfolding, we had no idea how many planes or targets were involved. In an unprecedented decision, all civilian aircraft in the entire country were grounded in a matter of hours. That certainly sounds like a situation where a national alert and broadcast could have been issued to warn the country what was happening or about to happen.

Because that large asteroid passed very, very close to the Earth yesterday, that certainly would be a reason for a national alert if it were actually on a collision course with the Earth.

You could have another multi-city terrorist attack, say, dirty bombs exploding sequentially in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and a threat from the terrorists that more are imminent.

You could be in the midst of a very bad, lethal pandemic or even a suspected bioterror attack in multiple sites across the country and the President orders all borders closed and all air travel to stop immediately in an effort to contain or slow the spread.

You could have another massive financial crisis which the government and the Fed aren't able to control and a real life "run" on the banks ensues eveywhere, so the President orders an immediate, nationwide "bank holiday".

Arguably, a "normal" nationwide broadcast could be used for any of these situations, but so could a nationwide EAS broadcast. Much of it may depend on the temperment of whoever is President at the time.

It was just this week that:

A - A large asteroid passed near the Earth.

B - The White House chose to deny any knowledge of ET contact with either people or the government.

And they pick now to do a nationwide test of the EAS?

I see black helicopters on the horizon (go to Fort Campbell, they are stationed there, dark grey really) and am prepping my aluminum hat as we speak. Do we think this is a coinkydink?

Let's keep the conspiracy theory stuff off of ETS.


chaosmagnet

Easy answer- how much of the media is now nationwide?

Cable and satellite are worthless if they only show their local emergencies- CNN is out of Atlanta, Fox News is from NYC, and MSNBC is... don't remember, NYC or LA. Either way, if those run ONLY their local emergency alerts, they are utterly worthless. Clear Channel Radio is just as bad, maybe even worse.

Now, would I use national for something like hurricane warning or a tornado watch? Generally, no.

I would use them for something like multiple attacks in several cities, or even just several serious attacks in one city, along with the advisory that watchers should tune to local media. A fast, 20-30 second beep and message at the top and bottom of the hour.

It isn't perfect, but what we have now is perfectly useless to reach the sizable portion of the population that just doesn't bother with network television. And of course, the national outlets I'm talking about seem to have all screwed it up.

*sighs* I keep telling myself the current state of affairs will be considered a good thing in three hundred years.