Nationwide Test Today

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in coordination with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), will conduct a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) this afternoon (Oct.3) . The WEA portion of the test commences at 2:18 p.m. EDT, and the EAS portion follows at 2:20 p.m. EDT. The test will assess the operational readiness of the infrastructure for distribution of a national message and determine whether improvements are needed.

What the above information means for you is that every cell phone in the country will receive a text message. This is part of FEMA's mandate and is supposed to be done every three years. They want to know the system works in case of a terrorist attack or natural disaster. There is no need to panic as this will only be a test. You will also hear this test at the above time this afternoon on WSBS.