Federal government to conduct a nationwide emergency alert test

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — “THIS IS A TEST”: If you have a cellphone or are watching television Wednesday, that message will flash across your screen as the federal government tests its emergency alert system used to tell people about emergencies.

The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System sends out messages via the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts.

The Emergency Alert System is a national public warning system that’s designed to allow the president to speak to the American people within 10 minutes during a national emergency via specific outlets such as radio and television. And Wireless Emergency Alerts are short messages — 360 characters or less — that go to mobile phones to alert their owner to important information.

While these types of alerts are frequently used in targeted areas to alert people in the area to thing like tornadoes, Wednesday’s test is being done across the country.

The test is slated to start at 2:20 p.m. Eastern Time Wednesday. Wireless phone customers in the United States whose phones are on will get a message saying: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.” The incoming message may even make a noise and the telephone will have to vibrate.

Customers whose phones are set to the Spanish language will get the message in Spanish.

The test will be conducted over a 30-minute window started at 2:20 p.m., although mobile phone owners would only get the message once. If their phones are turned off at 2:20 p.m. and then turned on in the next 30 minutes, they’ll get the message when they turn their phones back on. If they turn their phones on after the 30 minutes have expired they will not get the message.

People watching broadcast or cable television or listening to the radio will hear and see a message lasting one minute 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.”

Federal legislation calls for the methods be examined once or more each and every 3 years. The remaining nationwide test was once Aug. 11, 2021.

The test has spurred falsehoods on social media that it is a part of a plot to ship a sign to cell phones nationwide so as to turn on nanoparticles comparable to graphene oxide which have been offered into other folks’s our bodies. Experts and FEMA officers have brushed aside the ones claims however some social media say they will close off their cell phones Wednesday.