*These Tests Are Not An Emergency*
CANTON — Chief Charles Doody and the Canton Fire Department would like to inform residents that the National Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alert will be tested tomorrow afternoon.
At 2:20 p.m. Eastern Time on Aug. 11, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in partnership with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), will conduct a national test of the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alert.
The purpose of the test is to assess the effectiveness of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) to receive and convey a national message via radio and television, and of the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) infrastructure to deliver a test message to mobile phones. Unlike the last nationwide WEA test in 2018, most mobile phones will NOT display the test message.
During the EAS test, radios and televisions across the country may interrupt normal programming to play the EAS test message, which will last approximately one minute and may be delivered in either English or Spanish. The visual message, which will only be displayed on televisions, may vary depending on the station. The message will include, at a minimum, the originator, event, location, valid time period of the message and the time the message was transmitted.
The test message sent to the WEA infrastructure will only be received by specially configured phones, and will read: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”
Only phones that have been opted-in specifically to receive system test messages will display the test message, which will be in either English or Spanish, depending on the device’s language settings. In contrast to the test messages, in a true emergency, the public would receive emergency alerts on their compatible phones (even if they haven’t opted-in to receive test messages).
For more information about the FEMA test, visit here. More information about WEA and EAS can be found here.
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