The FCC Is Changing Up the Country's Emergency Alert System (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The FCC announced today that it'll bolster the country's Emergency Alert System to prevent unexpected false alarms, like the one that happened in Hawaii earlier this year. State and local officials will now be able to conduct "live code" tests that'll use the same alert codes and processes that would be required in an actual emergency. The idea is that officials will better learn the system while the public will get used to responding to alerts and know what to expect. Everyone in the area will get a test message, like a real alert. The agency also says that public service announcements about the Emergency Alert System will now be able to use the same alert sounds as an actual emergency. (The alerts will include a disclaimer about what's happening, and officials will have to actually tell people beforehand.) Finally, anyone who uses the emergency system will be required to tell the FCC if it accidentally triggers a false alert.

Comments

Re:Desensitized

[afidel]

No shit, everyone will turn off the EAS messages on their cellphones. I already did that since Verizon apparently can't figure out how to limit EAS messages to a few county range and instead floods every severe weather alert to an area about half the size of most states which means my phone wants to wake me up for a severe thunderstorm over 150 miles away.