WEBVTT - TechStuff Tests the Emergency Broadcast System 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.960 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.880 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:17.600 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:19.759 and welcome to check stuff. My name is Chris Poulette 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:21.799 and I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:24.400 Sitting across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.880 Strickland me. This was a test of the tech Stuff 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:30.600 podcast system. If this were not a test, you would 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.280 have heard a pun by Now. That's so, we wanted 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.519 to do an episode about the emergency broadcast system. This 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:39.600 was actually a request that was sent in by a 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.720 couple of different listeners, which is interesting because it doesn't 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.879 really technically exist anymore. Now we have a new system 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.640 in the United States called the Emergency Alert System. Also, 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.120 I should apologize to all of our listeners from places 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.600 other than the United States. This is a very United 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.440 States centric podcast. But it's interesting anyway, trust me. Well, 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.520 it's it's becomes something that's uh that's important in most 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.600 situations too. I mean they're they're uh tragedies and big 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.400 events that happen in places all over the world, so 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.520 that the question is you've got a country. Um, you know, 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.440 it doesn't have to necessarily be the United States, but 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:17.080 we have a country, you have millions of people living 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:19.720 there and something is happening. There's an earthquake or a 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.920 tsunami or uh, some other kind of accident, um, or 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.240 another country is invading or something like that. You know, 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:28.800 something big where you need to tell people, Hey, look out, 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.440 there's something you need to evacuate. You need to get 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.559 out of there. How do you address so many people 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.840 in a short time. Now, for the United States, what 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.240 inspired this was the need to reach out to people 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:44.560 during World War two, um, and there there wasn't a 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.080 system and its subsequently the Cold War. Yeah, yeah, well, 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:50.680 I mean the the whole uh, the end of the 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:54.840 the Second World War ended, of course with the dropping 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:59.000 of two atomic bombs on Japan, and um, you know, 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.760 it was apparent because other countries had that technology pretty 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.240 much right away and that that The Cold War between 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.840 the United States and the Soviet Union began shortly after that, 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.480 and then there was a um, there was a big 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.120 fear in the United States. But about um, what would 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.480 happen if the Soviet Union launched a nuclear attack on 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.200 the United States. How do you warn people, and they said, well, 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.119 you know, judging by UH what we did in World 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:27.919 War Two, that was fairly effective. But we need a system, 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:30.600 we need we need to plan, we need to figure 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.240 out how we can do this effectively and let everybody 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:35.160 know in a short period of time because we're not 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.320 going to have long we need to have a short 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:41.600 period of time, a message in place, how can we 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.440 reach out to people? And that was basically the birth 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.960 of UM what now is the Emergency Alert System. But 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:52.760 at that point UH was known as Connell rad UH 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.639 in fact, which wasn't by the way, kind of sort 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:00.600 of an acronym for a control of electromagnetic radiation. Kind 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.200 of terrifying, right, But that was established in nineteen fifty 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.600 one by under the administration of Harry S. Truman, Quick quick, 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.280 quick trivia was the S stand for nothing, that's right, 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.520 Harry S. Truman stood for nothing. Wait, no, that's not right, 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.240 stood for nothing. He just wanted it, you know, like 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.920 Michael J. Yes. So you don't say, like the S 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.800 stands for nothing, Like nothing isn't spelled with S. I 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:26.880 don't mean to confuse you. The S doesn't mean anything. 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:31.959 So control of electromagnetic radiation getting back on track. Prior 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:36.600 to nineteen fifty one, these alerts went out over radio stations. 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.600 They would get like an emergency bulletin, and it was 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:40.280 pretty much up to the station whether or not they 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.840 read it. Um Connel Red kind of established a specific 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.120 protocol that needed to be followed in the event of 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.400 an emergency, and originally the idea was that it would 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.240 alert citizens of the United States of an impending attack 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.600 from the Soviet Union. In those days, we're talking about 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.080 before intercontinental ballistic missiles, so these attacks would take the 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:05.920 form of bombers flying overhead, and so Comerade had two 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.840 main purposes really. One was to issue alerts to citizens 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.400 to try and get them to safety as soon as 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:14.640 possible in the case of the attack, and the second 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:19.400 was to minimize the ability of the Soviets to target 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:24.200 UH specific areas based on radio frequencies. So part of 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:28.240 the Conrad protocol was that radio stations would shut down 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.760 and they would only UH broadcast in a certain amount 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:37.480 of time and under certain frequencies. So under the Comrade 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.640 protocol you essentially had this This is what would happen 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.000 if if someone were to issue alert. By the way, 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.960 no alert was ever issued. It was originally called a 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.160 key station system, and the idea was that you had 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.680 these dedicated telephone circuits that connected the Air Defense control 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:57.919 centers to certain key radio stations called basic key stations. 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:01.800 If there were an adependent attack, the air Defense Control 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.440 center would issue the alert to the key radio stations, 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.080 these basic key stations that would then issue that same 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.320 alert to relay key stations. These would be smaller regional 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.960 radio stations. Uh so they It was sort of a hierarchy, right. 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.560 It went from Air Defense control centers to a certain 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.279 number of basic radio stations to every other radio station. 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.720 Once they received the alert, the radio stations would then 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.359 broadcast a predetermined message out to the listeners. And the 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:30.800 way it would work is that the stations would turn 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.719 off for five seconds, so they've stopped transmitting for five seconds, 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.839 Come back on for five seconds, go off for five 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.760 more seconds, then come on and transmit a tone for 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.279 fifteen seconds. Now, this was the the audible alert saying 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.080 something is up. You get the predetermined message, uh, actually 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:49.800 we're really What you had to do was tuned to 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:54.040 one of two frequencies. There was a frequency killer Hurts 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.760 frequency and the twelve forty killer hurts frequency. Now, these 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.800 two frequencies were the only two that were authorized to 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:06.159 broadcast during one of these emergencies, and uh, on radios 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.080 at the time, you would see this little symbol over 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:13.520 those those frequencies and it was a triangle inside a circle, 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:17.159 and that's the civil Defense mark. Yeah, you might remember 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.159 the symbol sort of red, white and blue if you've 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:24.280 seen it around and uh it's still not terribly uncommon 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.520 to see it every once in a while someplace. So yeah, 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:29.280 but that was that was saying like, these are the 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.279 two frequencies. If you if your favorite radio station isn't on, 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.479 tune into this station because this is where the information 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.680 is going to come from. Uh. It was not the 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.400 best system for a couple of different reasons. One was 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:46.400 that it was prone to false alarms if like an 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.760 electrical storm could set off a false alarm. Because you're 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.760 talking about electricity and radio frequencies, there is a relationship 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.920 there and we have talked about that extensively on this podcast. 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:57.840 So listen to our episodes about radio to learn more 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:01.400 about electro magnetism, radio waves, and electricity. Because I can't 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.440 go into it here, but the the lightning strikes could 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.720 cause false alarms, which is, you know, a bad thing 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:11.000 if if you've been told that this alert system means 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.880 that there's an impending attack from Soviet planes, it might 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:18.960 cause a little stress. Also, the switching mechanism, because it 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.840 would make transmitters switch on and off in this this 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:26.239 um the sequence could cause transmitters to fail over time. 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.400 It just from powering up and powering down so frequently 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.840 within a certain amount of time. And then, of course, UH, 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:37.440 this whole system, this idea of cutting off radio contact 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:41.560 so that you could minimize the ability for Soviets to 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:47.400 target in on specific regions, it became meaningless once intercontinental 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:51.360 ballistic missiles became a real thing, because now you're not 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.640 talking about planes anymore, you're talking about guided missiles and 0:07:55.840 --> 0:08:01.400 UH or at least targeted missiles. So it became clear 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:05.480 that connal red was starting to no longer be very relevant. 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.960 So they the government started to think, well, what can 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.600 we do that will provide a similar method for us 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.760 to message out emergency notices, but use a different approach, 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.560 And that was what sort of led into the development 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:25.720 of the Emergency Broadcast System e B S YEP. In nine, 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:30.160 EBS made its debut um and uh again it it 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.720 never was used, of course to uh, to communicate the 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:39.800 threat of war, not on purpose. We'll get but I'm 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:44.520 assuming that you listened to the w O w um. 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.360 We'll get to that. But yeah, I mean it was 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:51.280 a much more robust system. Um. And it's during the 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.280 Kennedy administration for those of you keeping track, yep, yep 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:56.640 and um. One of the nice things about it is 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:00.560 uh here again, well you could kind of tell kind 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.680 of judge the mood to UM. If you had heard 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.480 something come over Conald Rad, you probably immediately would have 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:12.600 thought war. But EBS was actually used for other things too. 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.280 I remember weather alerts coming in using the exact same thing, 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:19.679 and so you would hear and this was used on 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.840 multiple radio stations. You didn't necessarily have to tune into 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:25.760 one radio station to get your information. It would be 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.760 broadcast over TV and radio because you no longer had 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:32.040 to worry about that targeting issue. Then meant that all 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.160 the stations could be used instead of having to tune 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.560 into a specific one while everything else is turned off. 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.240 And hey, that's more effective anyway to reach people. Um. 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:45.240 But yeah, you would hear this, this tone which it's 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.760 hard to explain it. If you've never heard it, you're 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.600 splitting other than you're splitting and annoying. But it does 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.480 get your attention. Apparently it's the combined sign waves of 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.040 eight hundred and fifty three hurts and nine sixty hurts 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.360 specifically cho and because it does grab your attention, because 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:07.240 it's very jarring, yes to hear it. It's just you 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.280 can't ignore it. If you can hear, you can't ignore it. 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.760 That's that's true. Um. And of course, uh, those of 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:15.560 us who are familiar with it other than you know, 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.440 being living somewhere where they're multiple weather uh situations like 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:24.960 tornadoes or tornadoes. Um, you would probably have heard this 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.920 through the the alerts which Jonathan and I grew up with, 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.240 which was the testing. Yeah, they would say they would 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:32.959 come on and say, well, this is a test of 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.240 the emergency broadcast system and for the next sixty seconds, 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:38.280 we will be testing out the emergency broadcast system. It 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.680 would there was actually a very specific script that would fall, 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:43.320 and then there would be after they would tell you 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.800 there's a test coming, they would play this tone and 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.280 then there'd be another message that would appear at the 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:51.839 end saying this was a test of the emergency broadcast system. 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:54.240 If this had been a real emergency, you would have 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.440 received more information at this point alerting you to blah 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.240 blah blah, blah blah, we now return you to your 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.040 regularly scheduled programming type stuff. And they were required to 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.640 do this test once in a week. Yeah, regular, on 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:06.960 a regular basis. I didn't think it was quite that frequently. 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:09.439 And it was once a week unless you had actually 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.480 had to issue a real alert. If you had to 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:15.840 issue a real alert, could skip over some time. But 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.000 it was once a week at essentially a random time 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.920 between eight thirty in the morning and sunset at night. 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:27.120 Uh sometime during the week. So it wasn't that we'll 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.680 get into this too. There wasn't a time where every 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:31.520 single station had to do it at the same time. 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:35.840 It was unique to the various stations. And like you 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.640 were saying, Chris, you know these alerts went out not 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.120 just for a national emergency. In fact, they never went 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:46.240 out on purpose for a national emergency instead. Uh so, 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.240 so never it was never used purposefully for that reason, 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.600 even though that was the genesis of this system. It 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:55.560 was used more than Oh I don't know several thousand 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:59.920 times to alert for civil emergencies, sometimes an alert about 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.200 to be on the lookout for a suspect in a 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.160 in a particularly nasty crime that could be an alert, 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:08.920 or for the weather alerts like the ones that Chris 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.040 and I grew up with. I I can remember that 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:17.800 happening so many times. Well. The uh, The way the 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:23.040 emergency broadcast system worked was that the only message that 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:26.480 no station could ignore or was supposed to ignore, was 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.160 a national one. Right, So if you are a radio 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.200 station in the middle of nowhere and the national alert 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.560 goes out, you were supposed to to broadcast it just 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.079 like every other station in the country, whereas if it 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.040 were a local or regional you may or may not 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:47.079 have been able to ignore that message and not broadcast it. 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.400 The way it worked was that, again like the connal 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.040 red system, where you had the key stations, the basic 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.959 key stations, and the relay key stations, there was a 0:12:56.040 --> 0:13:00.240 similar setup for the emergency broadcast system. You had had 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:04.119 these primary points of contact, which would be major broadcast 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.800 stations usually, but these primary points of contact had to 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.240 issue all broadcast all the alerts they got. They had 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:13.680 no choice because they were a primary point of contact. 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.480 But if you were further down the chain, like you 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.800 were a secondary point or further down, then you could 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.720 elect whether or not to broadcast that alert, assuming it 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:25.800 wasn't a national alert that was the only one. Of 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:30.280 course everyone had to broadcast. So um, you know there 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:32.480 were that That explains why you might be in an 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:37.560 area where a weather service alert is being broadcast and 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:39.559 you saw it on one channel, but you switched to 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.760 another local channel, and there's nothing that could be why. 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.240 It may be that that other channels not a primary 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:51.240 point and therefore was not required to broadcast it. Um. Now, 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:56.599 the the incident that Jonathan mentioned, famous incident. Now, I 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.120 read an account of this from a person who was 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.720 working at a radio station in St. Louis at the 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.360 time it happened. Um, at the time it happened, by 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:09.520 the way his February. And what he had said was 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:14.840 that every Saturday at ten thirty three, the radio stations 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:20.440 would receive a test message from Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.240 and so basically it would say and there was a 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:27.600 code word that it would include that would let you 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.160 know that it was was genuine. And so at ten 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.280 thirty three, UM, there there was a teletype machine in 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:36.400 the other room, and he heard it and and typically 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.480 it would it would dig a couple of times to 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:40.880 let you know, hey, there's something something on the wire, 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.160 you know, a news story on the wire. But this 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:48.080 one rang ten times, which he knew was a big deal. Um, 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:51.480 And so he ran into the other room and got 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:57.320 a message that said he needed to broadcast a warning 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:01.400 that there was an announcement come from the national you know, 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:05.520 from the federal government, and it was something bad and impending, 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.440 and be on the alert because it was time to 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:12.040 broadcast a message. But they really weren't told what that 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.000 message was. What it was. Well, see here's the thing, hateful, hateful, 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:18.960 the you know, which was a code word, meaning that 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.120 the code that was actually a code word. The hateful 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.440 was a code word that meant there's a messages coming up, 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.280 there's an attack coming up, but more details will follow. 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.800 Go ahead and initiate the alert system. And it was 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.160 a mistake that was made by a teletype operator who 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.320 sent this authenticated code out to the system, which meant 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:39.960 it went to all those those primary points of contact, 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.800 and it didn't say it didn't say a minute later, Oops, 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.360 my bad. No no, it took a while, and in fact, 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.760 the first time they tried to resend it, they sent 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.440 the wrong code, so it didn't resend the message. It 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:56.160 was only forty minutes after the initial message was sent 0:15:56.160 --> 0:16:00.520 out that the cancelation the correct cancelation and went out. 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.359 So what happened was actually very telling in a way 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.840 because some radio, radio and television stations actually a lot 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.320 of them didn't do anything at all, so they did 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.760 not broadcast this message, and that, in a way is 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.680 a problem because the whole purpose of the system is 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.760 to relay a national emergency to everybody. Now. Now, in 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:22.680 many of these cases, it may be that the people 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:26.000 in charge said, there's no information here, we have no 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.160 real I mean, it's a confirmed code, but there's no 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:33.160 confirmed information and we have nothing to share with people. 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.760 So why would we go ahead and do this when 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:38.000 we don't have any information we could give them. Yeah, 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:42.640 they were standing by to broadcast whatever the major announcement 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.920 was about the attack. Some of them hadn't even signaled 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.160 the alert, right, They just the programming just kept on going, 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.160 But other stations did. Some of them didn't know what 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.320 to do, so some of them weren't doing it. On purpose. 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:57.800 Some of them weren't doing it because they didn't know 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.000 what they were supposed to do, and a few actually 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:02.960 broke into programming and said, we've received an alert from 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.720 the Emergency Broadcast System. We know that there is a 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:10.560 national emergency. We're a waiting for more information. Please stand by. 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.920 And what Chris was talking about earlier was there are 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:15.879 there a couple of recordings on the internet you can 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.400 listen to that we're taken from that day, and one 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.000 of them is from an radio station from Fort Wayne, 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.960 Indiana called w O w OH, and you can listen 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:26.720 to that and you can find it on the internet. 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:32.639 The actual it's snippets from that. It's been edited. It's sorry, 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.240 it's been edited down so that you get, uh sections, 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:40.000 the important sections of of the broadcast. It's about what 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.600 six minutes or so long, keeping in mind that that 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:44.840 whole window was more like forty minutes, So this is 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.320 six minutes of footage footage from six minutes of content 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:50.760 from that forty minute window. Yeah, So basically what it 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.879 said was, you know, hey, there there's something coming up. 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.359 It's it's um. It's one of those things that would 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:58.879 be funny if it weren't. If you don't put yourself 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.240 back at that time had been terrifying. It would have 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.040 been terrifying because he's the person who was on the air. 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:08.560 Was a you could tell, was that uh seasoned newsperson. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:10.800 he Uh, he was very serious and said, you know, 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.960 there's there's been a message. We're waiting word for what's 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.240 going on. Uh, if you are listening and you are 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.399 one of our reporters, come here immediately. We need you 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:23.520 here right now. And and basically was talking, uh, not 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.040 only to the audience but to the the other reporters 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:29.480 who might be listening. The message itself actually said, UM, 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:34.360 message authenticator, hatefulness, hatefulness. This is an emergency action notification 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.560 directed by the President. Normal broadcasting will cease immediately. All 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:42.199 stations will broadcast e A N message one preceded by 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:46.080 the attention signal. Per FCC rules, only stations holding nd 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:48.359 N D e A may stay on the air and 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:53.280 according and accord with State E B S plan. And uh, 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.920 that would have scared the pants off of me. Um. 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:00.439 And it took a while. As Jonathan said, you know, 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:02.960 kill e A N message. It was sent in error, 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:05.960 and it took a while for it to UH to 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.960 show up. But the person he the person who I was, 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:11.399 I was reading, I should have gotten the the U 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:12.840 R L if I can find it real quick for 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.639 you guys, I will um. The the person who was, 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:21.800 who has actually posted photos of scans of his copies 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:26.400 of these messages, was saying, excuse the burn marks. I 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:30.080 was smoking pretty heavily through this incidence. I think he 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.440 was kind of stressed out. If you listen to the 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.480 recording from the w O w O UH incident, you 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:42.360 actually hear the the newscaster kind of chuckling once the 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:45.720 once the order was sent out about this was a mistake, 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:47.919 and you know, kind of kind of because you know 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:49.960 clearly it was one of the stressful things, and the 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.120 chuckling is him releasing that stress. And it is an 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:57.119 interesting moment in history to kind of pick up on that. UM. 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.399 So yeah, not that was the only time that at 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.280 a national alert went out across the system, and again 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.440 it wasn't a real one. It was a mistake. UM. 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:10.679 And then what was supposed to happen is that, depending 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:14.600 upon the nature of the emergency, UH stations are supposed 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:18.160 to read from a predetermined script like it's it's they're 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:20.760 not supposed to just you know, kind of provide commentary 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.240 on it. There's a specific message that needs to be relayed. 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:29.080 And so that was the general purpose of the emergency 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.880 Broadcast system, but it was starting to show its age, uh, 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:35.320 particularly in the nineties, because you started to have other 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:40.280 methods of getting content on your television besides broadcast TV, 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:45.480 and the Emergency Broadcast system really affected radio and broadcast television. 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:49.879 So there needed to be an overhaul of the system, 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.199 and that's what happened in the late nineties, and in 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.920 ninety eight you had the Emergency Alert System take its place. 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.360 And now you might say, well, what's the difference. Well, 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:03.080 for one thing, it doesn't just include broadcast stations. It 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:07.120 also includes cable and participating satellite systems. So now you've 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.960 got other methods of broadcast or or you know, other 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:13.960 methods of getting content over your television included in this. 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:18.440 So that way, if a citizen is watching cable television 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:21.760 or something on satellite TV, they could still have access 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:26.080 to an emergency message. Because clearly, you know, you don't 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:28.639 want to leave everybody out. As as people have more 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.600 and more ways of watching stuff, it's harder to reach 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:35.040 them in a centralized way. Yeah. These these systems were 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.720 developed to run on AM and FM radio and the 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.800 local broadcast stations. So now we've gone from in the 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.960 United States, UM, let's say, on average, probably three or 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.119 four regular network broadcast stations, maybe a couple independence in 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.400 the larger you know city, something in the ultra high 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:57.320 frequency yeah, you know, maybe uh, six or six to 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:00.240 ten stations in big big markets. UM. Then you to 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:06.480 dozens or even hundreds of stations now with cable and satellite, um, 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.600 you know, plus uh you know the radio stations which 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:13.159 have exploded in number, um, satellite radio and all the 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:16.159 other media that we listen to now. So yeah, the system, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.240 there's a lot of people. You know, the system needed 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:22.080 to evolve with that development. And of course even now 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.520 we're still we're already seeing a need for that too, 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.400 find another way of reaching people because as people start 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:32.480 to use the Internet to get content, now there's yet 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:36.439 another avenue for information to get to them. But you know, 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.560 this system was not designed with that in mind, so 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:43.560 there's already another need coming out. But at anyway, the 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:47.280 way it works now, the National Weather Service actually has 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:52.480