If you were anywhere near the East Coast yesterday, you might have received an emergency storm alert on your phone telling you it’s time to to break into mass hysteria. Or maybe you didn’t! While it was nice to know that someone cared for those that got it, the emergency alert was hitting people’s phones pretty sporadically and without any real rhyme or reason as to which phones were getting the message—or so it seemed. More »
Apparently, some kind of weather catastrophe is on its way to the NE. I was vaguely aware that we would be getting a winter storm of some kind. Several inches of snow, a foot perhaps. But now I’m scared into a frenzy. Good! That means the system works! More »
While it’s a little later than expected, the free SMS emergency notification system has now gone live. Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) messages will be delivered to cell towers in affected areas, which will then broadcast them to all compatible devices in their range. While the system is looking to cover over 97 percent of the country, it’s being gradually rolled out across carriers. Sprint and Verizon are both apparently ready for action and while we haven’t heard about the status of T-Mobile or AT&T, the National Weather Service has stated that hundreds of smaller carriers haven’t yet enabled the broadcasts. However, not all phones — especially the more elderly bricks still in circulation — will work with the system. To check whether your weighty cellular still passes muster, hit up the compatible device list at the CTIA link below.
FEMA and National Weather Service launch Wireless Emergency Alert System originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 22:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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