On June 27, 2024, the FCC released a report about the results of the October 4, 2023, Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) nationwide tests. The purpose of these tests was to ensure that WEA and EAS are effective means of warning the public about emergencies, particularly on the national level. With respect to the EAS test, the report notes that the large majority of broadcast, cable, and other participating services reported successful receipt and retransmission of the EAS alert. The report notes that most respondents reported successful receipt of the WEA test message.
With respect to accessibility issues, the report identified concerns that some EAS text crawls were overlapping with closed captions, too fast, not accessible due to a low contrast ratio between the text color and background color, too small, or unclear/blurry.
Link to the Report:
https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-report-2023-nationwide-alerting-test
For general information about EAS, visit https://www.fcc.gov/emergency-alert-system. To learn more about WEA, please visit: https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/wireless-emergency-alerts-wea. For specific questions about the Report, please contact the Cybersecurity and Communications Reliability Division, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, at alerting@fcc.gov. Individuals who use videophones and are fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) may call the FCC’s ASL Consumer Support Line at 844-432-2275 (videophone).