National Presidential Wireless Alert Test Has Been Pushed Back to October 3rd
This Thursday there was planned to be a national test of the Presidential Alert System, but now the test has been pushed back.
The Presidential Alert system is in place to alert the public of any national emergencies although previously is has not been utilized. There was planned to be a test of this alert system on Thursday September 20th at 2:18PM CDT, but due to the efforts with Hurricane Florence FEMA has decided to push back the test.
The test will now be on October 3rd 2018. The alert will go off on your mobile device and read "Presidential Alert, this is a test." According to Reuters, in 2016 President Obama signed a law that required FEMA to create a system allowing the president to send cellphone alerts that regarded public safety emergencies. You may have had alerts come to your phone before, that's because we have a wireless emrgency alert system in place for Amber Alerts, and natural disasters (like extreme weather).
The difference now, is users can still opt out of natural disaster alerts, or Amber Alerts, but not presidential. The presidential alerts are for national emergencies only, and only the president can determine when such alerts are used.
Hopefully we will get the test and it will be successful, and we will never see a presidential alert come across our phone screen again, but it is nice to know that in the event of a national emergency, we will be able to quickly know what's going on.