Wednesday’s combined test from the FEMA and the Federal Communication Commission included the Wireless Emergency Alerts, or WEA, and the Emergency Alert System, or EAS. Messages were sent to cell phones, televisions and radios at about 2:20 p.m. ET ( 1:20 p.m. CT) to determine how effective the warning system was in distributing a message nationwide and the “operational readiness of the infrastructure for distribution of a national message to the public.”
“All the cell carriers that participate in WEA received the alert today. The EAS test alert was successfully processed and made available to broadcasters,” FEMA said in a statement. Additional analysis on the tests, including the geographic reach of the WEA test, will be done over the next four months, the agency added.
Conspiracy theories
Just before the alert,online conspiracy theorists began spreading misinformation about the tests. The most common rumor had to do with 5G cell networks activating “nanoparticles” in the body, triggering the Marburg virus – an extremely dangerous hemorrhagic fever virus - in people who had been vaccinated against COVID-19 and turning them into zombies.
FEMA said there are no known harmful health effects from the signal, which was essentially the same as the millions of text messages sent every day. The alert itself is the same that has been used on TV since the 1960s, the agency said.
And, the best proof of all - we didn’t see zombies roaming the street after Wednesday’s test.
“I received it on my phone and saw it on the TV. And I can confirm to you that I am not a zombie,” said Jeremy Edwards, press secretary and deputy director of public affairs at FEMA.
FEMA is required by law to test the systems every three years.
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