FEMA Conducting System Tests of Public Alert and Warning Infrastructures

FEMA and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will conduct a nationwide test of the country’s public alert and warning system on Wednesday August 11 at 2:20 p.m. ET. This routine test aims to assess the operational readiness and effectiveness of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) program. Wednesday’s test will be the sixth nationwide test of these two systems. The EAS broadcasts an emergency transmission via radio and television channels and as a result some radio and television programing may be interrupted during the test. The WEA will send out a text message alert to specially configured mobile phones. FEMA and the FCC are partnering with multiple state and local government stakeholders to assess the efficacy of the EAS and WEA systems. The information gathered from this test will be used improve the nation’s emergency broadcasting capabilities going forward. Read more at FEMA.