On this website, I’ve constantly posted articles on the matter of World War III. In some of those articles, I’ve mentioned something called the Emergency Alert System, something succeeded the Emergency Broadcast System, which in turn succeeded CONELRAD, which started in 1951.
Basically, these systems were designed to alert the public to emergencies, or at least what some government agencies deem an emergency. Initially, the sole job of CONELRAD was to alert us to bombers sent our way by what was then the Soviet Union.
It was in theory effective, but we will never know for sure how it reacted to a nuclear emergency because of course there never has been one. The major problem with the system was that in order to test the system, television and radio station engineers had to constantly switch their transmitters on and off, on and off.
The transmitters were not designed for a stress test, leaving engineers impotent. The only thing they could have done was hope and pray that their equipment survived a test. There has been no proof that any station actually lost their transmitter due to this test. Coming from a background in television and radio broadcasting, I can tell you that that level of testing should never have happened.
The purpose of the rapid cycling was to prevent Soviet bombers from zeroing in on television and radio broadcasters, which is something that German stations suffered at the hands of the Soviets.
At the time, there was no other purpose that CONELRAD served. In 1963, the EBS debuted and with its introduction came many possible uses other than to broadcast warning pertaining to what those awful Soviets did.
The main purpose of the EBS was to give the president a quick way to address the nation in the event of a Soviet attack or, for that matter, any other national emergency. But soon, the EBS was able to be used in the event of severe weather emergencies and other local civil emergencies.
Had something happened between 1963 and 1997, the flow would start with the president and trickle down through several layers. There was a teletype system that would have relayed authentication codes in the event of an event or, for that matter, a monthly test, which to this day is tested once a month.
Oh, those authentication codes. By the time I came along and first worked at a radio stations, the EBS had been fully phased out, but in that control room were authentication code sheets and capsules that would require being opened to ensure that the codes matched.
Every month, the Federal Communications Commission would send out a list of words, one for each day. During an activation, precious time was lost because of the requirement that mandated authenticating and using those codes.
But I never had to deal with that. When I started out, I was trained on the usage of the EAS, a system that made things a lot easier. No codes for one thing. Alerts came through and could be passed along automatically or manually. Manual operation was a breeze and took seconds after a message completed.
Now, of course, the EAS has even more event codes. Severe weather is still reported through the activation of the EAS. And that’s not all! AMBER Alerts are sent under strict guidance from law enforcement agencies.
Testing is still required. Each station must originate a test once a week and once a month, each station must participate in the monthly test. They have 15 minutes to put that test alert once it is received. In my day, it was an hour.
So there’s your context. The purpose of this article is to briefly discuss the EAN. It used to be called the Emergency Action Notification, but is now referred to as a National Emergency Message. All three incarnations of public alerting had a way to relay a nationwide emergency, such as Russia finally growing some balls and nuke us.
Throughout the years, there never has been a legitimate national activation. In recent years, the EAN has been tested through various means. Several times, there has been a national level test where every television and radio station had to participate.
The problem is that every single time a National Periodic Test has been done, something has gone wrong. It has yet to go completely smoothly and that should be an item of concern given the current climate of things. Russia and the United States continue to have ICBM’s with nuclear warheads pointed at each other with the ability to launch in less than ten minutes from the proper command procedure.
There have been several incidents involving the EBS and the EAS being activated incorrectly. The biggest incident occurred on February 20, 1971. The incident occurred because what was supposed to be a simple test turned into a situation where radio and TV station personnel thought nuclear war was happening.
On that day, a message came through the teletype network. That message was phrased in such a way that many station personnel truly thought the end was nigh. Most stations followed proper procedure and interrupted their programming to read a required script and they prepared for the worst type of message.
By now, the public became aware and all hell broke loose. They called stations in a panic and the stations didn’t know what to tell them. So what caused all of this?
It all came down to an incorrect authenication word. The panic came to an end once the correct word was used to cancel the alert. So who caused the fuss? A dumbass named W.S. Eberhardt. He was an operator at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, which is located in Colorado. He loaded the wrong tape and that caused the system to think that it was a real activation as opposed to being a test.
In response to the incident, the FCC made major changes and something like that never happened. Along came the EAS, and with it, an easier way to conduct tests. No more scripts, just send out the test, although some stations still elect to precede the test with an audio and/or visual warning that it’s just a test.
Again, there has never been an actual emergency that warranted a real activation of the national alerting system. Not even on 9/11 was it activated. The reason that no measures were taken to activate the system is simple: every station that had access to network or other news coverage was already broadcasting live.
Activating the EAS on 9/11 would have likely caused mass panic because people everywhere would think that they were the next targets. It wouldn’t have been an unreasonable reaction given what happened. But let’s be honest here.
What happened on that day was not a national emergency. Therefore, activating the EAS would have been inappropriate. No, it was a series of local emergencies. That’s all that day ever was. It never was and never will be a national emergency. The people who made the decision to not involve the EAS did the right thing.
But someday, the real deal will come along, maybe sooner rather than later. When it does happen, things will flow down the system automatically and ultimately, the system will automatically force the station to essentially take over the station’s audio channel until the code came down to end the activation. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
Yes, those squeals and other sounds that come along during an EAS test or activation have a purpose. They tell the equipment what sort of alert it is and in that data is everything the equipment needs to know about what type of emergency is and, among other things, what area it’s meant for and when it expires.
I could sit here and write a book on it, but there are plenty of resources available to you if you want to learn more about how the EAS works. I just want to point out what will happen when (not if) the day comes that the national-level alert is activated.
The best part of it all is that the EAS might be useless in a nuclear situation. In the event of an unexpected attack by Russia, things have to happen quickly. By the time all necessary levels of authentication, verification and key turns (no buttons) happens, and by the time the president speaks through the EAS, there will likely be less than ten minutes to react.
We may be able to detect a launch nearly instantly, as I’ve discussed in my collection of World War III stories, but a lot needs to happen between the moment of launch and the point where we actually get notified by the president, who will speak to us using equipment that’s stored in the nuclear football, also something I’ve discussed several times.
It’s said that the president can address us within ten minutes, but by the time that happens, there might be maybe ten more minutes to react before Russia vaporizes us. That being the case, what’s the point?
Now, if we see the writing on the wall days or even hours before an actual launch against us and if the national-level EAS is activated at that early point, then we might have a shot at sheltering somewhere, whether in a bunker or silo or wherever.
But my point is that you shouldn’t blindly rely on the EAS. It’s come a long way, but given the reality of time, we need to understand that things might just not work out unless we have a few hours’ notice.
And let’s remember: the national message may have been tested several times over the years, but when it happens, it’ll be the first time, so anything and everything will likely go wrong given how the tests thus far have resulted in little if any positive results.
Something has always gone wrong somewhere. So don’t expect the EAS to be your guiding light when it really counts. Sure, it can relay tornado and hurricane warnings. That happens all the time. But will it actually be able to perform in an actual national event? Don’t hold your breath.
So as you go to sleep tonight, just think that the last thing you hear will be your cell phone going off with an alert as part of the EAS, or maybe the last thing you hear will be your radio or television sending out the alert. Either way, there’s nothing for you to do but roll over and let it happen.
Sleep tight!