Bush is on television right now. Our local station mentioned a brief press conference, where Bush would discuss random stuff, including possible future terrorist attacks. So, I start listening with one ear, just to see if anything interesting is going on. And then our local television station decided this would be a PERFECT time to test the Emergency Broadcast system. :eek:
The EBS has always freaked me out, ever since Hurricane Hugo in 1989. (We knew it was coming, but when that annoying “BWAMP, BWAMP, BWAMP!” came on, and Linda Lombard was sitting there saying “if you are going to leave, you must leave now”, I became a basket case.)
So thanks, WJZ, for making me wish I wore Depends. Does anyone else get freaked out by that stupid EBS?
definitely! Errr it’s just so loud. Even my dogs go buck wild when they hear it, which makes me go crazy, which makes hubby go crazy. Just not fun heh.
WoS
What’s even worse in this neck of the woods is how Comcast has decided their slow-moving content-free interruption to tell you there’s a “Tornado Warning” somewhere on earth should take priority over every channel. Like right in the middle of local coverage that was doing excellent work on a street-by-street coverage of a bad storm that was headed our way, Comcast’s piece of shit blue screen obliterated it for at least a minute.
Thanks!
Of course, if we’d been on HBO or some other channel that had no local interests, the Comcast thing would have better warning than none. But we weren’t. They should figure out how to break in selectively to the channels that wouldn’t be doing it themselves.
Something very very strange happened last night or very early this morning according to Mr2U - he said he was watching TV and the EBS broke in and said, “Rolling Meadows residents should turn to Channel 3” or something along those lines. He turned to Channel 3 - even though we don’t live in Rolling Meadows, and there was nothing.
I told him he must have dreamt it - he swears it happened. Any other NWBurb Doper hear anything like that? Or is it perhaps time for me to take Mr2U in for an “evaluation”…
Along those lines, Zeldar, our local provider (Charter, in Gwinnett County GA) is even more screwed-up. When they do their EAS tests, they end up broadcasting channel 2 (local ABC affiliate owned by Cox, one of their competitors!) on all cable channels.
Yes, those alerts freak me out as well. Around here they’re worse on the radio. No warning, no nothing, just switching from the music directly to the “BWAP! BWAP! BWAP!” sound. Then there’s a loooong moment of silence before they announce the test, in which you start to freak out, trying to figure out if it’s just a test or if you should take cover in the basement or bomb shelter. By the time you hear “this is just a test. If this had been an actual emergency, blah, blah, blah…” your nerves are pretty much shot anyway.
I HATE those things. They really did a good job of picking the exact tone and frequency to really give you the willies when you hear it.
But the only time I’ve ever heard it used “for real” was during a really bad storm. Which I suppose might have been helpful, except that I was already painfully aware that there was a bad storm going on, thanks to the torrential downpours, strong wind, and large hail falling around me. So at that point hearing “BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP… we interrupt this broadcast to point out the painfully obvious and give you no useful advice whatsoever…” wasn’t terribly comforting.
But what really irks me is when they test it at night. I like to fall asleep with the TV on. And every once in a while, they’ll run one of those tests at like 4am. Now THAT is an awful way to wake up.
The only time I ever heard one and it WASN’T a test was during Hurricane Andrew. We were driving like maniacs along with everyone else in South Florida, all headed north on I-95. It was me, my ex-husband (whom I didn’t even murder!) two large dogs and two medium sized cats in my Toyota Corolla. The A/C gave out somewhere in the Middle Keys. The EBS went off somewhere in Miami, “This is NOT a test of the Emergency Broadcast System…” The main thing I remember, other than blinding panic, was that they advised all women over 7 months pregnant to get to a hospital, because the low barometric pressure could cause spontaneous labor. So we all learned something that day.
There are two distinct versions of the Emergency System.
The old system, the one that has been around for years, is two tones, 853 and 960 Hz, sounded for 23 seconds, which are used to activate receivers in other broadcast outlets. I can still recite the test scripts by heart:
The new system is called the EAS (Emergency Alert System). The BRRRAP BRRRAP sounds you hear are digital signals, activating receivers in other broadcast outlets, then digitally sending a message to a printer in the station concerning the emergency (or test). If there are any emergency instructions or official information, it is broadcast immediately following the last digital packets.
Much nicer than the old system, at least for the operators of the other broadcast outlets.
Except, Rico, the EAS doesn’t seem very efficient to me, at least in my experience. When I worked at a radio station in Florida last summer, I was helping out the afternoon news guy and browsing the internet when I heard a rumble of thunder. I looked on the internet, and saw that NWS had issued a tornado warning for eastern Lee County, and that a tornado had been spotted in Lehigh Acres. I told this to the news guy, and he said as much on air. 5 minutes later (which is a long time in an emergency), the EAS finally kicked in. Wouldn’t have done too many people good for it to come 5 minutes later than the tornado was there and the warning was broadcast. I thought the EAS was designed to prevent delays as much as possible.
It is, SanibelMan, however, IIRC, it must be activated by a government official. The hierarchy is National, Local, then State. So a national emergency takes precedence over a local emergency, but the local takes precedence over a state emergency. And therein lies it’s greatest weakness:
Ah, I thought the guy at the NWS office in Tampa hit a Big Red Button™ which activated it at the same time as the alert hit the wires. There’s another layer of lardy-bureaucracy goodness?
