Miami University

Nationwide Emergency Alert test Wednesday

11/07/2011

The first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System will take place at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9. The Federal Communications Commission will send the alert to radio and TV broadcast stations, cable television networks and other media services. While local tests have long occurred, this is the first national test.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the FCC need to know the system will work as intended should public safety officials ever need to send an alert to a large region of the U.S.

This test will be sent with a “live” national alert code, and not a test code – it will be presented as an actual emergency announcement – to test the actual working order reliability of legacy EAS equipment.

The EAS has been in existence since 1994, and its precursor, the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), began in 1963.

This national test is unrelated to Miami’s text message system and you will not receive a text message.

More information is here: www.fcc.gov/nationwideEAStest.