2019 Nationwide EAS Test Similar to 2011 Test

The 2019 nationwide test of the emergency alert system planned for Aug. 7 (see 1907010041) is expected to be largely routine. It will involve aspects of the system that haven’t been tested since the first nationwide test in 2011, said emergency alerting officials and broadcasters in interviews. Since the 2011 test experienced some complications, they are seen as possible this time around as well, EAS and broadcast officials told us.

Testing how a national alert message propagates without using signals delivered over the internet is intended to show how the system would function “on a really bad day,” when digital delivery methods are knocked out or disrupted, a Federal Emergency Management Agency official told us. Issues that arose in 2011 have been largely addressed, EAS officials said. “I expect it to go reasonably well,” said WKAR AM/FM/TV East Lansing, Michigan, Director-Engineering and Michigan State Emergency Communications Committee (SECC) Chair Gary Blievernicht.

Unlike the most recent EAS tests, next month's won’t use the Integrated Public Alert Warning System. It will instead be triggered from FEMA through a signal delivered by satellite to primary entry point (PEP) broadcast stations. Other broadcasters monitor those stations for EAS tones, and when alerts sound on the PEP stations, it will trigger the stations downstream, resulting in a “daisy-chain” that will propagate the nationwide alert message across the country. This will be the first time FEMA’s method of triggering a nationwide alert without IPAWS has been part of the nationwide test since 2011, said Sage Alerting President Harold Price.

This simulation also won’t involve wireless emergency alerts, which means it likely won't have as high a profile as the 2018 iteration, said several EAS officials. The public backlash to the WEA exercise and the widely circulated characterization of it as a text message from President Donald Trump aren’t the reason it's not part of the test in 2019, said every EAS and FEMA official interviewed. “This has been planned for a long time,” the FEMA official said. FEMA spokespeople didn't comment.

Nationwide tests since 2011 have involved the legacy, daisy chain method of propagating the message, always in combination with IPAWS, with some stations being alerted through the newer internet-based tech and some through the older system. The legacy system is also tested during monthly EAS tests, said Monroe Electronics Senior Director-Strategy and Government Affairs Ed Czarnecki. This will be the first time in a long time the whole system has tested end to end, he said. The test is planned to “completely shake down the PEP network and make sure it’s working,” said Maine Association of Broadcasters President and Maine SECC Chair Suzanne Goucher. It's intended to see if any “wrinkles” are in the system, said New Jersey SECC Chair Richard Archut.

In 2011, an audio error caused the emergency message to loop, creating an echo effect that led some stations to not pass on the message. EAS officials are watching that issue, and steps have been taken to prevent it, said Blievernicht. It's possible stations transmitting the audio downstream could inadvertently pick up and transmit unwanted audio from other stations' programming, Czarnecki said. Station programming audio is required to go silent during an EAS message, he said.

Monthly EAS tests operate similarly to the planned August one, but broadcasters will have less time to pass the message on, Czarnecki said. Broadcasters have 15 minutes during a monthly test to pass the message downstream and get two during the nationwide one. “This test is live,” Czarnecki said.

In previous simulations, low-power FM broadcaster participation hasn’t been as high as EAS officials would like, several said. The FCC held a seminar on the national test and reporting requirements for low-power broadcasters this month (see 1906250045). “We are making additional effort to encourage and increase the participation of Low Power broadcasters in the upcoming test,” emailed an FCC spokesperson. There's “always a possibility,” the test could reveal gaps in the system of daisy chained broadcasters, Archut said.

Along with low-powers, the agency appears to be paying special attention to accessibility, Czarnecki said. A recent reminder public notice on accessibility (see 1907170066) of the messages referenced portions of the FCC rules on the EAS and specific minutiae of how EAS messages are displayed. That’s a sign that the commission is paying increased attention to such matters, Czarnecki said.

The backup date for the nationwide test is Aug. 21. Participant reports are due in the EAS test reporting system the test day and detailed post-test data is due Sept. 23, the Public Safety Bureau has said.