Zeke Miller
Business Insider
11/9/2011
At 2 pm today the National Emergency Alert System is supposed be tested for the first time in its history on a federal level. As of 2:03 the system has yet to be activated.
Every TV and radio station in the nation is supposed to broadcast the test alert — sent from inside the White House — for 30 seconds.
The system was created in 1963 to allow the President to address the nation in the time of nuclear attack or other national crisis.
UPDATE: Brian Stelter tweets: At the NYT media desk, we heard the test via a radio, but we haven’t seen it via cable television.
UPDATE 2: It’s 2:07 and we still haven’t seen the test on any cable network. We’re calling the FCC, which oversees the system, for comment.
UPDATE 3 2:09pm: According to Twitter, the test displayed on CNBC and MSNBC in Washington. We still haven’t seen anything in New York.
“We’re still getting the results back now, and we’ll put out a statement soon,” a spokeswoman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency tells us.
The test was supposed to break into all radio and television— broadcast and cable — networks. Though it does not seem to have worked on New York City cable networks, among others…
Read the rest at Business Insider.
