Information about the national test of the Emergency Alert System

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

> And your upstream(s) to work. And their upstream(s) to work. etc. If 90% 
> of the stations in the EAS web are down you may end up with nothing 
> working.

6% of TV stations are operating in Puerto Rico
15% of radio stations are operating in Puerto Rico

Nationally, there are about 28,000 cable systems, radio and television 
stations.

This test will not use the FEMA primary entry point system, so its only a 
partial test of the national EAS.

Today's national test of the Emergency Alert System will be the same as 
the 2016 national test.  It is a partial test of the EAS, using the FEMA 
IPAWS system over the internet (i.e. Akamai and Cloudfront are used as 
CDNs) to the distribute the emergency test message. Cable, radio and TV 
stations need a working Internet connection as well as radio receivers and 
transmitters for IPAWS and EAS.

Although the national test was scheduled back in July, its still a good 
test opportunity to see how the internet and EAS works in Puerto Rico and 
the U.S. VI with so much damage to the infrastructure. The one minute 
national test should not intefere with disaster recovery efforts in PR or 
USVI.

For more information:

https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2017/09/19/mandatory-nationwide-test-emergency-alert-system-be-conducted-september-27

https://www.fcc.gov/document/nationwide-emergency-alert-system-test-planned-september-27