So we just had a nationwide test of the emergency alert system. It said that “no action is required by the public”
My question is what is the purpose then? Who is doing something when these tests happen?
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The purpose of the test is to verify that the alert system actually works. Think about it, there are millions of different parts that go into an alert system that is for notifying the entire nation. A lot can go wrong. The test is so when the alert system is needed for real, we know it will actually do what it’s supposed to do.
How do they know it works?
It’s like a fire drill. You have a protocol but how do you know it works? Small scale tests can work, like state-wide and local. But there are a lot of systems that interact that might cause issues. For example, as shown in https://youtu.be/Rsp_N83_AzE (iirc… I watched this earlier in the week) and https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/23/uk-emergency-alert-test-three-looking-into-why-users-failed-to-get-text the UK system failed. In the video there’s also one where the audio alerts played over and echoed, resulting in the message not coming across.
Back to the fire drill. You can easily tell if evacuating one room works, or one floor works, but evacuating a whole building at once might cause a jam at the stairwell. You want to know if that’s an issue without a fire, so you can fix the plan before the fire.
What I really don’t understand, as a non-american, is why this test is/was such a huge deal.
I’m Canadian and we get several emergency alerts a year. The system is also occasionally tested but there’s no 5 day rollout of “omg everyone turn off your secret cell phones” or all the hubub that surrounded this test.
Emergency alerts are actually just kind of common place here so I really don’t understand why this test is a big deal?
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