The Emergency Broadcast System: This Is Not A Test

Everyone growing up in the United States has heard the announcement coming from their TV and radio stations, "This is a test, this is only a test…" The Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) is something that many of us have heard tested throughout our lives, yet most of us have no idea how it works in real time. The EBS has been used to broadcast emergency information, for real, more than 20,000 times between 1976 and 1996, but it has never been used for its original purpose, to alert Americans of a *national* disaster. The only time I have ever experienced a takeover of all media, streamlining into one station, the EBS, was in 1989, after the earthquake that collapsed the Oakland freeway. As infrastructures reeled, while attempting to recoup some semblance of normality, a constant reminder of strange times came via radio. All stations were broadcasting the same thing, earthquake survival and recovery information, and all stations you tuned into gave you the same EBS broadcast.

The EBS broadcasts after the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989 had really interesting information. I remember one report dealt with the issue of trees and tree doctors. The tallest palm trees in Santa Cruz, where I lived, had swayed in an extreme manner during the quaking. This created large holes around the bases of the trees, threatening nearby houses with their precarious instability at the base. Tree doctors were offering free tree packing services in the area and a phone number was broadcast to call for help. Other things that were broadcast after the 1989 quake were school closures, the status of federal aid getting to our area, ways to make water potable, which roadways were impassible and alternative routes that were available, emergency shelter locations, reports on aftershock activity, and more. The EBS became a portal of necessary survival information and community instruction right after the disaster.

Due to the role radio can play during and after a disaster, I think that a wind-up/solar radio should be part of every family's disaster preparation kit. I have used crank radios in disasters, and they work wonderfully. Instead of worrying about batteries, you just crank the radio when you want to listen. My very old model needs to be hand cranked about 1 minute to run for 15 minutes. I also have a hand-pumped flashlight that was invaluable in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. I highly recommend hand-cranked/pumped radios and flashlights be stored in every home, office, school, and car (you can google crank or solar powered radios, etc. to find these products).

The Emergency Broadcast System was created in 1963 by the Kennedy Administration, in preparation for civil defense in a nuclear age. It was created as a way for the president to access thousands of radio and TV stations simultaneously, to communicate with citizens in a state of emergency. Prior to the 1963 EBS, there was a "Control of Electromagnetic Radiation" (CONELRAD) system put into place by President Truman, in 1951. In 1994, the EBS was replaced by the Emergency Alert System (EAS).

Most commonly the EBS has been utilized for severe weather emergencies. Due to this, people on the East Coast and in the MidWest sections of the United States have seen the EBS in action more than those in mild weather areas on the West Coast. I have been in several natural disasters on the West Coast, and only once have I actually seen the EBS triggered into play. In the Northridge Earthquake in 1994, the EBS was not triggered as the area sustaining the damage was relatively small, and all communications systems in the surrounding areas were functioning. The Northridge area was devastated, but we were able to get contact with resources relatively close to us in a short time. In contrast, the 1989 Loma Prieta Quake isolated Santa Cruz in many ways, and the largest, closest city to our north, San Francisco, was dealing with its own chaos from the quake. Landslides made many paths out of Santa Cruz impassible, and for a period, we were seriously on our own, in a crisis, in a small ocean town. Thus the breadth of the emergency, and its access to surrounding infrastructure for relief, plays into the use of the EBS.

The screetchy sound the EBS test made, was meant to get our attention, but it also triggered EBS equipment in the area. Once the EBS was activated, the station making the broadcasts were given an official message for their audience to air after the screetchy sound. The early EBS equipment could not do much but alert people with the tone, then an announcement. This was almost a phone tree system, where one station's activation of its EBS equipment would trigger other area's EBS equipment, and if one station in the system did not do its part, others down the road went without necessary information.

The new EAS was designed by the FCC, broadcast and cable media, emergency management agencies, the alerting equipment industry, the National Weather Service (NWS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Amber Alert System now being used across the nation, has been tied into the EAS, as well. There are now state and local EAS's in place, in addition to the federal system. Now when you hear the test we all grew up with on TV and radio, it says "This is a test of the Emergency Alert System," not the old "This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System."

In addition to the name change, the EAS has upgraded its system with digital technology and streamlined announcements that circumnavigate the old system that resembled a phone tree. Now the EAS can send out emergency information through stations automatically, even if no one is present at the stations. The EAS is also using the same type of signals as the NWS, which has made the weather and emergency system warnings digitally compatible, increasing functionality. Products now available on the market allow for decoding of EAS messages, allowing first hand citizen access to this information, giving them a way to get to the source of the information, without having to wait for broadcasts as in the past. The digital tests for the EAS are also less intrusive and less common, thus when the EAS is actually triggered, it is more powerful. Most people learned to just tune out when an EBS test came on…because it was so rarely NOT a test. This system tests less, and boasts more effectiveness.

The FCC is the agency that oversees the EAS. It enforces the rules implementing the EAS, and educates different industries about the requirements of this system. The NWS provides professional quality emergency weather information to the EAS, with the help of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). FEMA and local emergency agencies are responsible for emergency management announcements (or announcement content) during the implementation of the EAS warnings as well.

Although these systems are evolving, there is still an issue regarding the sole use of broadcast means to alert people of an impending crisis. The EAS simply cannot replace in-person warnings. There is a strange situation here where the government is dependent upon the media to get its emergency messages out, yet with the unleashing of indy media, which often does not fall under FCC control, the government is finding it is not as easy to rein in the media for its own means nowadays. Additionally, less people are using mainstream sources for their news, thus getting a standardized announcement to all the indy media venues now seems nearly impossible. In a world where the media was controlled by the government's agenda, emergency alerts at a national level seemed somewhat easy. But now, with successful media in America that is openly hostile to the government agenda, getting media to cooperate in any way, even as an emergency alert system, is getting more thorny by the day. Figuring out WHO to believe for your news has now also complicated emergency warning systems.

How you are informed of emergencies is going to get more complex with time. On Sept. 11, 2001, I was not aware of what was going on in NYC until a friend called me and told me to turn on the TV. I could have easily not turned on the news the whole day if she had not called, and if I had not gone out and had worked all day at home, I could have not known that was going on. It took a friend to call me and tell me to turn on media, so the media was not enough, I needed a human to lead me to the emergency media!

Certainly while you are in the emergency area, you know it is going on. In the Northridge Earthquake, it was obvious it was a quake, but there were other questions. Were we the worst hit, or were we outside of the main impact zone, so the severe damage we were seeing was nothing compared to elsewhere in Los Angeles? And in the Santa Cruz Earthquake, as I raced home with my son from his childcare, person after person standing on their front lawn, looking at their shattered front windows and tumbled chimneys, said to me, "What was that? Was it a nuclear blast? An earthquake?" I replied, "I have no idea." It was not until we got home to a radio that we confirmed it was a quake. Getting some clarification, and assessment of the gravity and breadth of damages, can be essential during and after a crisis, and often, the media is the first way we find important information out. Yet the media is no longer the one dimensional animal it was in 1963.

I expect we will see more changes to the EAS system as the government catches up with the independent media explosion and technology. Disasters are occurring more often due to more and more cities, with ever-increasing density of populations. The issue of how we deal with disasters, and how we alert folks to the dangers and safety measures, is far from being resolved.

Kirsten Anderberg. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint/publish, please contact Kirsten at kirstena@resist.ca.

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