Presidential Alert System: FEMA To Test Emergency Message System This Week

Don’t get shocked if you find a new message on your phone coming from the US President Donald Trump. Well, it won’t be a political message, but an emergency test message coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Presidential alert system to warn the public in cases of a serious weather situation or other emergencies.

The government plans to test the Presidential alert system at 2:18 p.m. EDT on Thursday, September 20. As part of the testing, a large number of cell phone users will receive an alert with the header “Presidential Alert” and the message, “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced the information via Twitter on Saturday. The tweet includes a link to FEMA’s website that will have answers to all the questions that people would want to know about the system and the test.

The warning system “provides the president with the communications capability to address the nation during a national emergency,” FEMA’s website read.

Notably, this is not the first time that such a message alert system is being put to work. Amber Alerts, which warn the public about a missing child, have been sent to cell phones for some time. Major carriers like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint will all participate.

FEMA’s website admits that it has some issues that will likely get resolved by the test before the message alert system is needed in a real emergency. Unfortunately, there is no way to opt out of the presidential alerts, unlike other emergency alerts. As the system is designed to be used sparingly, so it is unlikely that the messages will be sent too often. Furthermore, the organization has confirmed that the government cannot track end users’ location through this alert system. So, there’s no need to worry.

If any issue arises during the testing, FEMA said that it will postpone the Presidential alert system test until October 3.