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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.
This will just train us to ignore the real alerts
"Had this been a real alert, you would all be dead by now" "Had this been a real alert, the sound you just heard would be followed by screaming, wailing, and the sounds of vehicles rapidly leaving the area" "Had this been a real alert, do you really think we'd warn YOU?"
Additionally, each test of the alert system will be able to have corporate sponsorship. Citizens will feel safer knowing that a major corporation has a vested interest in their survival. Fewer words will be more comforting than "This test of the Emergency Alert System has been brought to you by the Coca-Cola Bottling Company--have a Coke and a smile!"
When someone says, "Any fool can see
"Live tests" will be performed every week in order to keep the populace continuously scared while simultaneously conditioning them to feel like it's "just another alert" when a real disaster happens.
A death spiral of disasters and acceptance, until the world ends and everyone just shrugs and says "it's fine".
Most are familiar with warnings, watches, and amber alerts but little has been done to explain newly overhauled codes for programmers dealing with EAS beacons. The following can be expected to show up in data streams soon.
Amberish alert: a little girl hasnt been abducted but a local law enforcement agency also needs to justify their next years budget. this code is issued for 5 hours, broadcast on news outlets, and then the girls actual location with a family member is revealed.
The amber alert, Sponsored by AT&T: a major telco carrier has intentionally kidnapped a preteen and, if you find her, you receive a coupon for a free large soda with any papa johns pizza order of a large pizza.
Amber alert pro 2005 millennial edition: this is an alert sent from stations running an old copy of windows. no one knows how to turn it off.
uncomfortable disaster alert: issued during slow-rolling man-made disasters for which no accountable agency or individual can be found. School shootings, the Flynt water crisis, honeybee extinction, and collapsing roads and infrastructure are defined as triggering this alert, however the content of the alert is simply an escapist series of movie previews and trailers for upcoming video games.
presidential alert, the best: Get ready for this one because its yuge, really. Awaken at odd hours of the night to rambling screeds such as "jeb is a waste" and "the wall is the best, because america is the best, and, you wouldnt believe it but its gonna be great, trust me." Boggle as congress has legislatively redacted any ability to disable this alert.
Good people go to bed earlier.
They don't do ANY tests now. It will be good for people to know what an emergency alert looks and sounds like so that they realize when one is coming in.
The tests should be infrequent, though; at most twice a year, and at a well-known time when people are unlikely to be asleep.
In October, the FCC will introduce a mandatory advertising channel that you cannot turn off.
In March 2019, they will add thirty minutes daily of poetry and songs celebrating beloved leader Donald J. Trump that you cannot turn off.
Six months later they will commandeer the cameras and microphones in all mobile devices.
Well you'd at least have time to pour yourself a tall glass of gin or something
The BS alerts of various sorts are already annoying, and i'm basically ignoring them already... Bl**** Hell;
during the summer there is a Severe Thunderstorm every other day; I know that, you know that -- we can hear the thunder well in advance, and by looking at the cloud formations in the sky and the Radar app it is obvious what will be going down.... more alerts are not the answer
Especially if you're going to test the system by generating alerts: first let me control HOW I receive alerts, and make them less intrusive --- If I hear part of an alert and don't want to listen to the rest, then I should be able to dismiss it.
I am sick of having Television and Radio programs disrupted --- I'm on cable, and if I so choose: what my DVR is recording should NOT be fscked up, because someone sent an EAS test while I was away. Also.... My TiVO has a defective response to even the "test" emergency alerts... It winds up LOCKING the tuner on a specific channel, that's presumably supposed to receive the alert, but it never RELEASES the tuner back to my control. Also; What the hell.... If I know very well what the emergency is, I should be able to tune my preferred news channel that generally provides BETTER more-local more up-to-date information than any EAS junk does... with no "Eas LOCK" preventing me from changing the channel on my own frickin' TV.
There should be thus: (1) No interruption of the transmission of programming; ENCODE the information and cause a "message" to be saved to the TV and/or DVR --- recordings should be unaffected;
(2) Better User-Interface Design; Play the alert but provide a Popup window that allows Acknowledging/Dismissing the alert.
Or it was during the cold war. It may be different now - but if so, no one has bothered to tell us.
* In Yorkshire, you can have a nice cup of tea instead.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
If you're emergency plan requires a text message you're doing it wrong especially when you're relying on companies like ATT who can't even keep 911 up.
Text messages can work, most people use this on their phones as audio quality is superbad. Problem is getting alerts from places far far away or child kidnapping from a different part of city (not applicable to anyone except family members that are in custody dispute). Like just about all others, I disabled alerts on my phone because annoying loud sounds that when alerts happen, it is always at 2 am (and for an incident beyond my influence).
I grew up in an area that had airraid sirens, they worked just fine. The Government of course pulled the funding for them.
But these days would anyone understand them? But then large area sirens don't require someone to purchase a phone and subscriber service. OTA TV and radio can be quite useful to get the word out but do people watch or listen to those anymore? And if they do, will these stations go into emergency mode if needed. I was talking with someone that was caught in the Santa Rosa fire earlier this year. In middle of night she and her friend at motel happen to wake up smelling smoke. They opened the door to see entire surrounding area in flames, they immediately grabbed car keys and high tailed it or at least try to get out of the area. It was confusing because smoke and limited visibility but eventually found the freeway and start heading south out of the area. She said scanning the radio could not find any station reporting what was happening, eventually found a PBS station with live reports and updates.
mfwright@batnet.com