Early Results Show Successful Nationwide WEA, EAS Tests

Early results seem to indicate the WEA did reach the hundreds of millions of phones predicted by a senior FEMA official Tuesday: Several phrases apparently referencing the WEA test were listed by social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, as trending 30 minutes after the alert. “Zombie,” a joking reference to conspiracy theories about the test, was the No. 1 trending topic in the U.S. at 3 p.m. EDT, and shared the trending list with “brains” and “two minutes early.”

Both the EAS and WEA tests were “extremely successful," said FEMA Integrated Public Alert Warning System Director Antwane Johnson on a press call Wednesday afternoon. He said FEMA doesn’t know how many phones received the WEA message and will be gathering information through CTIA to get a more detailed picture, but he said anecdotal results were encouraging and phones appeared to receive the message in seconds. Most phones we monitored appeared to receive the WEA message at 2:18, though one received a second alert roughly 20 minutes later. The FCC didn't comment on the test's results.

The test repeatedly interrupted Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as he gave his opening statement at a Wednesday afternoon hearing on implementation of the 2022 Chips and Science Act. “That’s a first,” Cruz said amid gales of laughter from the dais and audience in the hearing room. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., suggested “I think your time is up, Sen. Cruz,” after the signals blared in the hearing room. Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., apologized, saying “we announced it” was coming “before you got here.” Footage widely circulated on social media shows a hail of phone alerts interrupting a White House news conference. At NATOA's annual conference in Long Beach, California, numerous attendees' smartphones went off over the course of about two minutes.

The WEA test does appear to have had some difficulties with multilingual alerts. Several phones monitored by Communications Daily showed the test message in Spanish and transmitted audio of the message being read aloud in Spanish, though those phones were set up with English as the primary language. Posts on social media show similar results. Johnson said Wednesday the Spanish WEA should have appeared only on phones set up with Spanish as the primary language. The choice is “determined at the handset level,” he said. “It is too early to tell if something went wrong,” he said.

An AT&T spokesperson emailed: “Today’s test helps ensure that emergency alerts reach consumers and that all stakeholders in the emergency alerting ecosystem understand and address any problem areas immediately. We are committed to ensuring emergency alerts work seamlessly in the most critical moments.” Other national carriers and CTIA didn’t comment on the test Wednesday, though in August several welcomed it (see 2308180037). Major wireless carriers had a few glitches during localized, end-to-end WEA tests last year but reported no major problems (see 2210030042). The first nationwide test of WEAs was in 2018 (see 1812210056).

Since the test was announced, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated for an Oct. 19 vote a draft order that would require participating wireless providers to transmit messages translated into the 13 most commonly spoken languages in the U.S., in addition to English and American Sign Language (see 2309280071). The draft proposes to require WEA-capable mobile devices to support alerts that link subscribers to a native mapping application on their phones “to depict the recipient’s geographic position relative to the emergency incident.”

The FCC would also permit WEA performance and public awareness testing by allowing alerting authorities to send two localized WEA tests per year that the public would receive by default. So far, the proposed rules haven’t led to any ex parte filings at the FCC, either in support or opposition to new rules.

Public safety officials in several states told us the broadcast side of the test also appeared to go smoothly. Arkansas State Emergency Communications Committee (SECC) Chair Chris Daniel told us he was aware of a few individual stations with minor problems but no large issues. “It appears very successful,” said Matthew Lightner, who chairs the Pennsylvania SECC. He chalked the success up to this test using the internet-based common alerting protocol system (CAP) rather than the legacy daisy-chain system. In the latter, broadcast stations spread the alerts to each other across the country by playing audio tones over their broadcast feed, so a problem high on the chain can lead to lower stations not receiving the alert. Alerts triggered by CAP are less vulnerable to those difficulties but also are dependent on a working internet connection, Lightner said.

The 2023 test was the first test of the CAP-based alert since 2018. Tests in 2019 and 2021 used the daisy chain system only. In the 2018 nationwide test, 95.5% of test participants received the alert. In the last nationwide EAS test in 2021, using only the daisy-chain, 89.3% of participants received it. After years of national tests, broadcasters have become practiced at conducting them, said Digital Alert System’s Ed Czarnecki. “We’ve been learning our lessons,” said Washington SECC Chair Ted Buehner, who said that, at least based on early results, the 2023 EAS test might be “our best ever.”

Asked about conspiracy theories circulating online that the test would make people sick or turn them into zombies, a FEMA spokesperson stressed that the systems used to transmit the test are the same as the ones used constantly around the country to transmit amber alerts and tornado warnings. Those who turned their devices off to avoid the nationwide alert or opted out of alerts have a right to do so, “but we hope you turn your alerts back on,” the spokesperson said. “It’s the same system, it’s the same technology,” Johnson said.

Broadcasters and MVPDs that participated in the test are required to file an initial test report within a day of the test, and a more detailed report by Nov. 20."FEMA is conducting a survey on the WEA portion of the test to help us capture information about the geographic reach of the WEA Alert Message. said a FEMA release Wednesday. "Final determination of population reach for the EAS test will come from data collected by the EAS Test Reporting System. Analysis will be done by FEMA and the FCC, and results could take approximately four months."