The Federal Emergency Management Agency ( FEMA)was scheduledto send off a presidential alert to most cell telephone in the U.S. on Thursday , but due to the way ’s continued response toHurricane Florence , it has been delayeduntil October 3 .
The alert will still go on at the same scheduled meter , 2:18pm ET , and will be sent out to all cell phones compatible with wireless pinch alerts ( WEA ) and within scope of an active cadre tower , fit in to a intelligence release from FEMA . Their wireless supplier must also take part in WEA .
The purpose of WEA is “ to warn the public about severe conditions , missing children , and other critical situations through alerts on cell phones , ” according to FEMA . The test substance function out next month will have the same tone and shaking as other WEA alerts , but with the headline “ Presidential Alert ” and the next textual matter : “ THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System . No action is needed . ”
This will be the first interior test of its form , according to FEMA . It ’s intended to ensure that the system is running as planned , and to shape if refinement need to be made . FEMA said in a program line last week that the President of the United States will be the only soul responsible for deciding when these types of alert are sent , Reuters reports .
“ If you separate this from the politics and personality of any individual president then this is a great idea and an amazing utilization of engineering to reach everybody if they ’re in hurt way , ” Karen North , director of the Annenberg Digital Social Media program at the University of Southern California , secernate NBC .
Emergency alert systems have , in the past , proven to be vulnerable to bothhuman failuresandmachine error , so testing out the effectiveness and accuracy of such an alert do sense . And as few people depend on traditional hot culture medium where alerts often seem , such as radio and TV broadcasts , it ’s helpful to expand pinch alerts to devices that , for most mass , are typically turned on and readily useable — so long as the system is not pettily ( and perilously ) abused .
[ Reuters ]
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