Your Phone Will Sound a Loud Alarm on October 4th

Prepare for a little chaos Wednesday afternoon as the National Wireless Emergency Alert System will be tested from 2:20 to 2:50 pm ET. (On the West Coast, this is from 11:20 to 11:50.) If you have a burner phone that needs to be hidden or a child who is sleeping during this time, you may want to prepare.

Why are they testing this alarm?

There is a national emergency alert system that provides the “it’s just a test” messages that you may have seen on television or heard on the radio. It’s a descendant of CONELRAD , a Cold War-era innovation designed to allow the President to tell us that World War III has broken out and Soviet bombers are dropping nuclear weapons as we speak. (CONELRAD quickly switched transmitters to make it more difficult for these bombers to use radio transmissions for navigation; once ICBMs were invented, this function became unnecessary and the system was replaced by the simpler Emergency Broadcast System , and later by EAS.)

EAS (for radio and television) and wireless emergency alert systems (for telephones) are the same systems used for weather alerts, such as tornado warnings, as well as amber alerts, so the system is widely used. It usually sends local or regional alerts, so the entire national system is checked from time to time. And that’s what will happen on Wednesday.

What will happen on Wednesday afternoon?

At the same time—scheduled for 11:20 a.m. PT, 12:20 p.m. PT, 1:20 p.m. CST, and 2:20 p.m. ET—you can expect radio and television stations to broadcast the test message , and cordless phones will ring. signaling.

If you have a phone, this will be an instant shock: alerts typically use a loud tone rather than a notification sound or regular ringtone. If you don’t have a phone, it will ring from your drawer, locker, or wherever it is. (I bet this would be fun at my kid’s middle school, where phones are allowed but must be kept in lockers or bags out of sight.)

The cell tower will try to send the message for 30 minutes, although each phone will only receive it once. So if you turn on your phone at 2:25 am (EST), you will receive an alert. After approximately 14:50, if everything goes well, the test will be over.

Can I opt out of this alert?

Unfortunately no. If your wireless provider participates in the WEA network (and almost all do), they are not allowed to let you opt out of national alerts . (However, you can opt out of weather alerts and Amber alerts. Please check your device settings if you wish.)

The alert will reach phones and similar devices (such as some Apple Watches ) if they:

• Included
• Not in airplane mode
• Within range of a cell tower (the message will not be able to reach you if you are in a remote location without a signal)
• In a region where the wireless provider participates in WEA (so you won’t get it if you’re overseas)
• A modern phone capable of receiving WEA alerts (some very old phones cannot).

If you have a phone that needs to remain silent or hidden (including if it’s your emergency line that you don’t want your abusive partner to know about ), make sure the phone is turned off when the alarm goes off.