US to test its Emergency alert system today
November 9th, 2011 - 7:56 pm ICT by Aishwarya BhattWashington, Nov 9 (THAINDIAN NEWS) The US will be testing its Emergency Alert System on Wednesday (the 9th of November 2011). The nationwide test will be the first of its kind in the country.
The alert system was developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and will be tested on television and radio. Ahead of the test, FEMA embarked on a campaign to inform Americans of what to expect.
FEMA boss Craig Fugate informed CNN that, “I think the biggest reason nobody ever tested it was because of all the concerns of what could happen and what could go wrong. We take a different approach. If we don’t test it, we don’t know what we need to fix.”
The US Emergency Alert System is meant to inform Americans in case of a disaster. FEMA says the system will be used to alert Americans in instances like nuclear disaster or massive natural disasters.
FEMA promises that they will fix all issues that will come up during the test. The major problem that the system is expected to encounter is how it will superimpose the “This is a test” warning on the sets of users of cable television services. This is most important because dumb users will not be able to notice that it is a test.
The test is expected to last for 30 seconds.
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Tags: boss, cable television services, cnn, craig fugate, dumb users, emergency alert system, emergency management agency, federal emergency management, federal emergency management agency, fema, instances, natural disasters, nuclear disaster, radio