Warning people about dangerous weather is a matter of life or death. Meteorologists need all the help they can get when it’s time to get the word out about severe weather. The federal government is about to test one of those important warning systems in a few weeks. As we approach the test on October 3, I have one thing to say: Y’all are out of your got-danged, ever-lovin’, conspiracy-addled minds if you think Donald J. Trump is planning to take your cell phone to make you read his angry rants while he watches television. Seriously? Come on now! Get a grip.
Emergency Alerts Can Save Your Life
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| An example of what a Wireless Emergency Alert looks like on an Android smartphone. |
Here’s what’s going on. FEMA will conduct a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System on Wednesday, October 3. (The test was originally scheduled for September 20, but was rescheduled due to Hurricane Florence.) The test will be pushed to cell phones at 2:18 PM EDT and transmitted to television and radio stations at 2:20 PM EDT. The federal government has conducted these nationwide EAS tests a couple of times in recent years—to varying degrees of success—but this will be the first time that the test includes the Wireless Emergency Alert capability on cell phones.
Starting in 2012, all modern smartphones gained the ability to receive
Wireless Emergency Alerts. These alerts are sent to your device based on
your location. If you’re within an alert—say, a tornado warning—you’ll
instantly see a push notification on your device that’s accompanied by a loud,
EAS-like tone. These WEAs are proven life-savers, transmitting alerts
like tornado warnings to people who might not otherwise have been paying
attention to the weather.
That’s all it is. Really.
Wireless Emergency Alerts on your smartphone can save your life. The system has only been in place for a couple of years, but there are documented cases of people saving their lives by acting on alerts sent to their phone just minutes before their homes were destroyed in a tornado or flood.
The catch is that you can’t disable presidential alerts. Those are the only alerts you can’t shut off. You can shut off tests, severe weather alerts, and AMBER Alerts, however, which is what I fear many people will do if they’re afraid “the president is taking over their cell phone.” Do not shut off the weather alerts on your phone to spite the president. Tampering with your weather alert settings does nothing to stop the presidential alerts and could jeopardize your safety one day.
Presidential Alerts Are A Relic of the Cold War
It’s easy to forget that the Emergency Alert System exists for reasons other than giving you chills. The EAS is the successor to the Emergency Broadcast System and CONELRAD, systems developed to allow the president to quickly address Americans in the event of a nuclear war or invasion. Due to the relative lack of nuclear wars or foreign invasions in the decades since the alert systems were developed, the ever-present feature on television and radio is mostly used to transmit severe weather warnings and child abduction alerts.
That test was pretty glitchy. Some stations never repeated the alert. Some never shut the alert off. Folks watching DirecTV heard pop music during the test. But finding those glitches was the whole point of the test. They’ve repeated that nationwide test a couple of times in recent years, but this will be the first to include test alerts on cell phones as well.
The Same Conspiracies Were Pushed About Obama
Here’s how they freaked out about it at the time:
Even the Washington Post describes it like something out of Orwell’s 1984. The FCC has approved a presidential alert system. Obama may soon appear on your television or call your cell phone to warn you about the next specious al-Qaeda underwear bombing event.
[…]
Once again, the government has imposed an unreasonable and absurd mandate on business and the American people
It’s improbable that even the most attention-craving president would abuse the slow, bureaucratic process it takes to activate the Emergency Alert System as their own personal megaphone. It doesn’t take long for a Trump tweet to make its rounds. A screenshot of every tweet is blasted on cable news within a minute of its issuance.
This system isn’t there to let Trump send you text messages while he angrily watches Fox News. The system is there to warn you in case of a missile launch, foreign invasion, or natural disaster. You’ll probably only ever see these alerts before tornadoes and flash floods. Please don’t disable these alerts on your cell phone because of what you read online. The alerts could save your life one day.
*This post was corrected to reflect that the test was postponed from September 20 to October 3 due to the lingering effects of Hurricane Florence.
[CONELRAD advertisement via Wikimedia Commons]
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