I was just watching Mythbusters and the audio went out for a few seconds while a grey rectangle showed above the action saying something like, “This is a weekly test…please turn to channel [whatever] for more details.”
So I was thinking…with all of the other available media, such as the internet, satellite radio, TiVo and DVD, what is the likelihood that an EBS message will be heard by the majority of the US? I know that regular radio and TV stations have to have them, but I’m not sure about satellite radio. Add also the fact that I had no desire to turn the channel to whatever the station was.
And granted, several of those other media are only available to those with the funds to access them (I’m thinking TiVo and high-speed internet) but even those with less money seem to be able to afford DVD players, CDs, computer games and the like.
When 9/11 happened I heard about it on normal radio, because I was working nights and happened to be up. I heard about the attack on the Pentagon from other people who’d been listening to radio and also watching the internet. Then I went home and watched it on CNN.
So what say you? I say the EBS needs to be revamped to meet the needs of the 21st century, or should be abolished. But maybe someone has some information I don’t?
It’s in place for emergencies where they occur. Internet is way down on the list of what will likely function if severe damge occurs. It’s a nice additional medium, but once something breaks all the power lines and telecommunication cables, you’ll want something that is a bit more durable. Use of shortwave radio, radio stations, and television, is likely to be the most likely to work, until major repairs are made. It’s not just a warnibg system, it’s suposs to provide help during and after the event. The more ways to access, the better, but some sytems are more likely not to work later. The internet would certainly be more usful to individuals if up and running.
Although there are many alternatives to watching tv or listening on radio in realtime, I don’t see much of an alternative to the Emergency Broadcast System at this time, nor do I see any advantage in junking it just because it doesn’t immediately reach 100% of the target audience. Nothing EVER reaches 100% of the target audience. Even if it were possible to, say, notify everyone in a crisis by simultaneously phoning (or texting, in the case of cellphones) all the telephones within range of a disaster, you still wouldn’t get 100% audience coverage. As you yourself point out, word of mouth helps cover the gaps.
I can certainly see augmenting the EBS with other means as they become available, but I see no upside to abolishing the EBS. I don’t fieel that putting up with the occasional EBS test on TV or radio is all that burdensome to either the public or the broadcasters.
Actually, EBS went the way of the dodo years ago. It’s since been replaced by the Emergency Alert System. EAS covers AM and FM radio, broadcast and cable TV, XM and Sirius satellite radio, and even digital satellite TV including DISH and DirecTV.
So if you are expecting the news to appear on cnn.com, it’s gonna get there because somebody who works at cnn.com got the word from EAS. Yeah, cnn may well get a report from their newsgatherers, but in a real no-shitter, they’re gonna be putting out the EAS content as well.
Now whether cnn.com or any oher internet news site has an automated method to get EAS messages posted to their main page is another question. I’d bet the answer is “some do, some don’t”
Our EAS goes off all the time, especially in the summer when tornadoes and severe thunderstorms pound the High Plains. Our listeners rely on us to notify them of watches and warnings because, with 500+ TV channels available and satellite TV shoving cable out the door, we are the primary method of notification for several hundred square miles of the High Plains. We don’t take that responsibility lightly.
As for the original question, it has been overhauled numerous times since the old EBS was designed in the depths of the Cold War. When I first started in radio, we had coded instructions and each month we’d get a new sealed envelope with the code word printed on the outside – if we got an EBS notification with that code in it, we were to open the envelope and follow the instructions inside. It was all cloak-and-dagger, with the intent of providing some warning in the event of nuclear war. We all know now, of course, that it would never have worked the way it was supposed to.
EAS is almost entirely weather- and natural disaster-related. And it works beautifully.
I generally shut my computer down when there’s a bad storm. (Back before I had DSL, I ended up with a fried out modem during one particularly bad one-and it wasn’t even ON at the time).
But, TV or radio isn’t a problem then, so I’d be more likely to hear it. Plus, the warnings don’t start blaring on EVERY site you’re on, like they do on TV.
Thank you all for the information; there were some things I hadn’t thought about. I have never heard an actual non-drill broadcast, so I wasn’t aware of its usefulness in weather-related situations.
If you don’t live in an area that is prone to seather emergencies, you probably wouldn’t hear non-drill EAS alerts. We have actually had winter storm warning alerts here in eastern Colorado because especially harsh winter storms can sometimes move petty fast, and can cmpletely disrupt life for a time (to say nothing of killing whole herds of cattle if precautions aren’t taken.) I don’t know if EAS alerts go off on the coasts when hurricanes threaten. So it’s entirely possible, in some parts of the country, to live one’s whole life and never hear a real EAS alert. Consider yourself lucky!
I recall during 9/11 that just about every news site I tried to access had server overload – I either lost the connection almost immediately or never got on.
Yeah, the net is a lot sturdier now, and will get even sturdier in the future, but I expect during the next real “Holy Shit!” emergency, things will bog down the same way.
And I’m with Sunrazor. Just try and find a local Doppler radar in real-time on the net when there’s a tornado heading for you.
Absolutely, and thank you for bringing this up. EAS warnings, via NOAA weather radio bands especially, can and do save lives in severe weather situations, most critically when such weather occurs in the middle of the night. Most people won’t be up surfing the web or watching/listening to broadcast media at that time, but the weather radio will wake you up and make you listen when you need to. It has been suggested by some meteorologists that every home needs a weather radio as much as it needs a smoke or carbon monoxide detector, and this is pretty close to the truth for most people.
Intravenus, do hurricanes trigger your EAS alerts, or do they move so slowly that other communications means are sufficient? I’m kinda’ interested in your location specifically, since my son and his wife live in Cary, NC.
I just want to agree with this and add my own commentary. I have lived in the Los Angeles all my life and had never heard the EAS system used for anything other than testing. Last year, I was visiting Washington, DC for the first time during late June when a severe thunderstorm began to roll through. I was watching a baseball game on TV when the EAS system started in, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Add to that the fact that we don’t get thunderstorms anything at all like that here at home, and you can understand why I was on edge the rest of that evening for sure.
Hurricane advisories (with data on position, winds, pressure, etc.) from the NHC are integrated into the regular weather-band forecast recording loop, but do not trigger warnings themselves. The same goes for hurricane watches and warnings; they don’t set off EAS-alerts inland, AFAIK, although they too are integrated into the weather radio loop. Usually they are “announced” (by a computer voice nowadays) right before the public advisory. I’m not sure what the situation is on the coast. I assume that hurricane watches and warnings would indeed trigger the EAS down there, especially in areas where evacuation may be more difficult, such as the Outer Banks. Hurricane watches and warnings are technically issued for stretches of coast and waterways, not for specific counties, and many public safety officials will urge people to only evacuate inland as far as they need to to get away from the effects of coastal flooding/storm surge.
Inland, the big concerns with hurricanes usually have to do with rain flooding and tornadoes. Tornadoes are warned for separately from hurricanes, by the Storm Prediction Center, and their products always set off the EAS. Flood watches and warnings will set off the EAS as well. One warning product that has been implemented fairly recently by the NWS is for high storm winds inland, if significant damage is expected away from the coast from winds (I believe this sort of warning was issued for portions of central and northern Mississippi ahead of Katrina). This type of warning was not being issued at the time when the big inland wind-producers such as Hugo and Fran occurred, so I don’t know how the EAS would handle it.