Emergency Alert System

New Federal Emergency Alert System to replace EBS

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the National Weather Service (NWS), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have issued final implementation plans for streamlining the nation's emergency warning system for the twenty-first century. Replacing the current Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), the new Emergency Alert System (EAS) has been designed to work effectively with satellite, broadcast and cable technologies.

New features of the EAS include and NWS developed digital system architecture that allows broadcast, cable, satellite and other services to send and receive alerting information. Multiple- source monitoring for emergency alerts and a mandated standard protocol for sending messages are also part of the EAS.

EAS's digital capabilities will also exist on the next generation of NOAA Weather Radios. Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) allows NWS offices to send hazard warnings to specific geographic areas (counties) over the NOAA Weather Radio network. A brief digital code at the beginning and end of each message identifies the type of warning as well as the geographic area for which the warning is intended. A decoder on the NOAA weather radio receiver will activate only those radios within the warned area.

The message encoding technology will also allow any commercial or cable broadcasters to automatically receive an encoded warning message and immediately display it on the air. use of the code is currently limited to time-critical messages related to public safety, such as weather and flood warnings as well as civil emergencies.

As part of the EAS announcement, the FCC notified radio and television broadcasters that they are required to replace the EBS with EAS equipment by July 1, 1996.