EAS nationwide test set for Wednesday

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will conduct a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) Wednesday, August 7 at 12:20 p.m. MDT.

The test message will be sent to radio and television stations via FEMA Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS).

This year’s test will evaluate the readiness of the national alerting capability in the absence of internet connectivity. Similar to regular monthly EAS tests, Wednesday’s test will be approximately one minute long, with minor interruption of radio and television programming.

Both the audio message and text crawl should be accessible to people with disabilities. Because the test is in the absence of the internet, the cell phone alert will not be included.

This is the fifth EAS nationwide test. Previous EAS national tests were conducted in November 2011, September 2016 and 2017, and October 2018, in collaboration with the FCC, radio and televisions stations, and emergency management officials.