1
00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,160
Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

2
00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:13,960
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

3
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:16,640
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

4
00:00:16,680 --> 00:00:19,440
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works and I love all things tech. And

5
00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:25,680
Speaker 1: this is only a podcast about a test. Yes, this

6
00:00:25,880 --> 00:00:29,280
Speaker 1: is a classic episode of tech Stuff where Chris Poulett

7
00:00:29,360 --> 00:00:34,320
Speaker 1: and I talk about the emergency broadcast system. It's that

8
00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:39,400
Speaker 1: wonderful system that is it's truly valuable, but I remember

9
00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:44,360
Speaker 1: vividly as a child being startled every single time it

10
00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:46,640
Speaker 1: would come on television. If you don't know what I'm

11
00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:49,559
Speaker 1: talking about, you gotta listen to this episode. Have a

12
00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:52,680
Speaker 1: little trip back in time. Originally, this episode aired on

13
00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:56,400
Speaker 1: August first, two thousand twelve, so I hope you enjoy

14
00:00:56,600 --> 00:01:00,560
Speaker 1: this classic episode. Tech Stuff tests the emergency broadcast system.

15
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:04,160
Speaker 1: So we wanted to do an episode about the emergency

16
00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:06,720
Speaker 1: broadcast system. This was actually a request that was sent

17
00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:10,160
Speaker 1: in by a couple of different listeners, which is interesting

18
00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:13,600
Speaker 1: because it doesn't really technically exist anymore. Now we have

19
00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:16,119
Speaker 1: a new system in the United States called the Emergency

20
00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:19,120
Speaker 1: Alert System. Also, I should apologize to all of our

21
00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:22,280
Speaker 1: listeners from places other than the United States. This is

22
00:01:22,280 --> 00:01:25,680
Speaker 1: a very United States centric podcast, but it's interesting anyway,

23
00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:29,840
Speaker 1: trust me. Well, it's it's become something that's uh that's

24
00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:33,880
Speaker 1: important in most situations too. I mean they're they're uh

25
00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:37,520
Speaker 1: tragedies and big events that happen in places all over

26
00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:40,880
Speaker 1: the world, so that the question is you've got a country, um,

27
00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:43,000
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't have to necessarily be the United States.

28
00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:44,920
Speaker 1: We have a country, have millions of people living there,

29
00:01:45,319 --> 00:01:47,960
Speaker 1: and something is happening, there's an earthquake or a tsunami

30
00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:51,919
Speaker 1: or uh some other kind of accident, um, or another

31
00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:54,200
Speaker 1: country is invading or something like that. You know, something

32
00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:56,440
Speaker 1: big where you need to tell people, hey, look out,

33
00:01:56,480 --> 00:01:59,040
Speaker 1: there's something you need to evacuate. You need to get

34
00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:02,160
Speaker 1: out of there. How do you rests so many people

35
00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:05,440
Speaker 1: in a short time? Now for the United States, what

36
00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:08,880
Speaker 1: inspired this was the need to reach out to people

37
00:02:08,919 --> 00:02:12,600
Speaker 1: during World War two, um, and there wasn't a system

38
00:02:12,720 --> 00:02:15,800
Speaker 1: and its subsequently the Cold War. Yeah yeah, well, I

39
00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:18,919
Speaker 1: mean the the whole uh, the end of the the

40
00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:22,440
Speaker 1: Second World War and it of course with the dropping

41
00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:26,600
Speaker 1: of two atomic bombs on Japan and um, you know,

42
00:02:26,639 --> 00:02:29,400
Speaker 1: it was apparent because other countries had that technology pretty

43
00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:32,880
Speaker 1: much right away, and that that The Cold War between

44
00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:35,480
Speaker 1: the United States and the Soviet Union began shortly after that,

45
00:02:35,560 --> 00:02:38,079
Speaker 1: and then there was a UM there was a big

46
00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:41,679
Speaker 1: fear in the United States, but about UM, what would

47
00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:46,079
Speaker 1: happen if the Soviet Union launched a nuclear attack on

48
00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:49,799
Speaker 1: the United States? How do you warn people? And they said, well,

49
00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:53,160
Speaker 1: you know, judging by what we did in World War Two,

50
00:02:53,200 --> 00:02:56,480
Speaker 1: that was fairly effective. But we need a system. We

51
00:02:56,520 --> 00:02:58,399
Speaker 1: need we need to plan, we need to figure out

52
00:02:58,400 --> 00:03:00,960
Speaker 1: how we can do this effectively and let everybody know

53
00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:02,880
Speaker 1: in a short period of time because we're not going

54
00:03:02,919 --> 00:03:05,240
Speaker 1: to have long we need to have a short period

55
00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:09,480
Speaker 1: of time a message in place. How can we reach

56
00:03:09,520 --> 00:03:13,560
Speaker 1: out to people? And that was basically the birth of UM.

57
00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:16,200
Speaker 1: What now is the Emergency Alert System. But at that

58
00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:21,639
Speaker 1: point UH was known as Connell rad Yes, UH in fact,

59
00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:24,440
Speaker 1: which wasn't by the way, kind of sort of an

60
00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 1: acronym for a control of electromagnetic radiation, which is that's

61
00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:32,040
Speaker 1: kind of terrifying, right, But that was established in one

62
00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:36,200
Speaker 1: by under the administration of Harry S. Truman. Quick Quick

63
00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:39,920
Speaker 1: Quick Trivia was the S stand for nothing, that's right.

64
00:03:40,160 --> 00:03:44,400
Speaker 1: Harry S. Truman stood for nothing. No, that's not right. Nothing.

65
00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:46,720
Speaker 1: He just wanted it. He liked it sort of, you know,

66
00:03:46,760 --> 00:03:49,240
Speaker 1: like Michael J. Fox. So you don't say like the

67
00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:51,960
Speaker 1: S stands for nothing, Like nothing isn't spelled with S.

68
00:03:52,360 --> 00:03:54,480
Speaker 1: I don't mean to confuse you. The S doesn't mean anything.

69
00:03:54,720 --> 00:03:59,600
Speaker 1: So control of electromagnetic radiation getting back on track. Prior

70
00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:02,800
Speaker 1: to nine teen fifty one, these alerts went out over

71
00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:06,040
Speaker 1: radio stations. They would get like an emergency bulletin, and

72
00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:07,640
Speaker 1: it was pretty much up to the station whether or

73
00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:10,760
Speaker 1: not they read it. Um conal Red kind of established

74
00:04:10,760 --> 00:04:14,200
Speaker 1: a specific protocol that needed to be followed in the

75
00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:17,640
Speaker 1: event of an emergency, and originally the idea was that

76
00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:20,520
Speaker 1: it would alert citizens of the United States of an

77
00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:24,680
Speaker 1: impending attack from the Soviet Union. In those days, we're

78
00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:28,440
Speaker 1: talking about before intercontinental ballistic missiles, So these attacks would

79
00:04:28,440 --> 00:04:32,680
Speaker 1: take the form of bombers flying overhead, and so conal

80
00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:36,400
Speaker 1: Red had two main purposes. Really, one was to issue

81
00:04:36,440 --> 00:04:39,560
Speaker 1: alerts to citizens to try and get them to safety

82
00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:41,320
Speaker 1: as soon as possible in the case of the attack,

83
00:04:41,680 --> 00:04:45,240
Speaker 1: and the second was to minimize the ability of the

84
00:04:45,279 --> 00:04:50,520
Speaker 1: Soviets to target uh specific areas based on radio frequencies.

85
00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:54,240
Speaker 1: So part of the connal Red protocol was that radio

86
00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:59,279
Speaker 1: stations would shut down and they would only uh broadcast

87
00:04:59,360 --> 00:05:02,719
Speaker 1: in a certain amount of time and under certain frequencies.

88
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:07,520
Speaker 1: So under the Comrade protocol you essentially had this. This

89
00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:09,760
Speaker 1: is what would happen if if someone were to issue

90
00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:12,280
Speaker 1: an alert. By the way, no alert was ever issued.

91
00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:15,919
Speaker 1: It was originally called a key station system, and the

92
00:05:15,960 --> 00:05:18,560
Speaker 1: idea was that you had these dedicated telephone circuits that

93
00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:22,960
Speaker 1: connected the air defense control centers to certain key radio

94
00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:28,080
Speaker 1: stations called basic key stations. If there were an appending attack,

95
00:05:28,400 --> 00:05:30,840
Speaker 1: the Air Defense Control center would issue the alert to

96
00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:33,440
Speaker 1: the key radio stations, these basic key stations that would

97
00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:37,520
Speaker 1: then issue that same alert to relay key stations. These

98
00:05:37,520 --> 00:05:41,240
Speaker 1: would be smaller regional radio stations, uh so they it

99
00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:43,680
Speaker 1: was sort of a hierarchy, right, It went from Air

100
00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:47,599
Speaker 1: defense control centers to a certain number of basic radio

101
00:05:47,640 --> 00:05:51,880
Speaker 1: stations to every other radio station. Once they received the alert,

102
00:05:52,160 --> 00:05:55,120
Speaker 1: the radio stations would then broadcast a predetermined message out

103
00:05:55,120 --> 00:05:56,760
Speaker 1: to the listeners. And the way it would work is

104
00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:00,240
Speaker 1: that the stations would turn off for five seconds, so

105
00:06:00,279 --> 00:06:03,360
Speaker 1: they'd stopped transmitting for five seconds, come back on for

106
00:06:03,400 --> 00:06:06,839
Speaker 1: five seconds, go off for five more seconds, then come

107
00:06:06,880 --> 00:06:09,600
Speaker 1: on and transmit a tone for fifteen seconds. Now, this

108
00:06:09,720 --> 00:06:13,320
Speaker 1: was the the audible alert saying something is up. You

109
00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:16,520
Speaker 1: get the predetermined message. Uh, actually we're really What you

110
00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:18,760
Speaker 1: had to do was tuned to one of two frequencies.

111
00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:22,360
Speaker 1: There was a frequency they killer Hurts frequency and the

112
00:06:22,440 --> 00:06:26,440
Speaker 1: twelve forty kill Hurts frequency. Now, these two frequencies were

113
00:06:26,480 --> 00:06:29,800
Speaker 1: the only two that were authorized to broadcast during one

114
00:06:29,800 --> 00:06:34,320
Speaker 1: of these emergencies, and uh, on radios at the time,

115
00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:38,400
Speaker 1: you would see this little symbol over those those frequencies,

116
00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:41,479
Speaker 1: and it was a triangle inside a circle, and that's

117
00:06:41,520 --> 00:06:46,080
Speaker 1: the Civil Defense mark. Yeah, you might remember the symbol

118
00:06:46,200 --> 00:06:48,120
Speaker 1: sort of red, white and blue if you've seen it

119
00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:52,200
Speaker 1: around and uh it's still not terribly uncommon to see

120
00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:55,240
Speaker 1: it every once in a while someplace. So yeah, but

121
00:06:55,279 --> 00:06:57,599
Speaker 1: that was that was saying like, these are the two frequencies.

122
00:06:57,720 --> 00:06:59,840
Speaker 1: If you if your favorite radio station is an on,

123
00:07:00,320 --> 00:07:03,120
Speaker 1: tune into this station because this is where the information

124
00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:06,280
Speaker 1: is going to come from. Uh. It was not the

125
00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:09,000
Speaker 1: best system for a couple of different reasons. One was

126
00:07:09,080 --> 00:07:13,960
Speaker 1: that it was prone to false alarms if like an

127
00:07:14,040 --> 00:07:16,360
Speaker 1: electrical storm could set off a false alarm because you're

128
00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:19,360
Speaker 1: talking about electricity and radio frequencies. There is a relationship

129
00:07:19,400 --> 00:07:22,560
Speaker 1: there and we have talked about that extensively on this podcast.

130
00:07:23,080 --> 00:07:25,440
Speaker 1: So listen to our episodes about radio to learn more

131
00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:29,120
Speaker 1: about electromagnetism, radio waves and electricity because I can't go

132
00:07:29,160 --> 00:07:32,240
Speaker 1: into it here. But the the lightning strikes could cause

133
00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:34,760
Speaker 1: false alarms, which is, you know, a bad thing if

134
00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:38,680
Speaker 1: if you've been told that this alert system means that

135
00:07:38,720 --> 00:07:41,760
Speaker 1: there's an impending attack from Soviet planes, it might cause

136
00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:46,800
Speaker 1: a little stress. Also, the switching mechanism, because it would

137
00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:49,920
Speaker 1: make transmitters switch on and off in this this um

138
00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:54,400
Speaker 1: the sequence could cause transmitters to fail over time, just

139
00:07:54,640 --> 00:07:57,360
Speaker 1: from powering up and powering down so frequently within a

140
00:07:57,360 --> 00:08:01,640
Speaker 1: certain amount of time. And then of course, uh, this

141
00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:05,200
Speaker 1: whole system, this idea of cutting off radio contact so

142
00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:09,840
Speaker 1: that you could minimize the ability for Soviets to target

143
00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:15,440
Speaker 1: in on specific regions. It became meaningless once intercontinental ballistic

144
00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:18,960
Speaker 1: missiles became a real thing, right because now you're not

145
00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:23,240
Speaker 1: talking about planes anymore. You're talking about guided missiles and

146
00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:29,040
Speaker 1: um or at least targeted missiles. So it became clear

147
00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:33,079
Speaker 1: that connal red was starting to no longer be very relevant,

148
00:08:33,160 --> 00:08:36,559
Speaker 1: so they the government started to think, well, what can

149
00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:40,240
Speaker 1: we do that will provide a similar method for us

150
00:08:40,240 --> 00:08:44,360
Speaker 1: to message out emergency notices, but use a different approach,

151
00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:48,160
Speaker 1: And that was what sort of led into the development

152
00:08:48,200 --> 00:08:52,199
Speaker 1: of the Emergency Broadcast System e b S YEP. In

153
00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:57,480
Speaker 1: nine EBS made its debut um and uh again it

154
00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:01,080
Speaker 1: it never was used, of course, to uh, to communicate

155
00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:04,440
Speaker 1: the threat of war, not on purpose. We'll get there,

156
00:09:05,800 --> 00:09:10,640
Speaker 1: but I'm assuming that you listened to the Wow that

157
00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:14,319
Speaker 1: was fun. Um, we'll get to that. But yeah, I

158
00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:18,240
Speaker 1: mean it was a much more robust system. Um. And

159
00:09:18,400 --> 00:09:21,480
Speaker 1: it's during the Kennedy administration for those of you keeping track, yep,

160
00:09:21,679 --> 00:09:24,000
Speaker 1: yep and um. One of the nice things about it

161
00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:27,839
Speaker 1: is uh here again, well you could kind of tell

162
00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:30,840
Speaker 1: kind of judge the mood too. Um. If you had

163
00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:35,960
Speaker 1: heard something come over conald Rad, you probably immediately would

164
00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:39,640
Speaker 1: have thought war. But EBS was actually used for other

165
00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:44,120
Speaker 1: things too. I remember weather alerts coming in using the

166
00:09:44,160 --> 00:09:46,599
Speaker 1: exact same thing, and so you would hear and this

167
00:09:46,760 --> 00:09:49,640
Speaker 1: was used on multiple radio stations. You didn't necessarily have

168
00:09:49,760 --> 00:09:52,920
Speaker 1: to tune into one radio station to get your information.

169
00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:55,760
Speaker 1: It would be broadcast over TV and radio because you

170
00:09:55,840 --> 00:09:58,480
Speaker 1: no longer had to worry about that targeting issue. Then

171
00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:01,199
Speaker 1: meant that all the stations could be used instead of

172
00:10:02,120 --> 00:10:04,520
Speaker 1: having to tune into a specific one while everything else

173
00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:06,880
Speaker 1: is turned off. And hey, that's more effective anyway to

174
00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:10,720
Speaker 1: reach people. Um. But yeah, you would hear this this tone,

175
00:10:11,760 --> 00:10:15,040
Speaker 1: which it's hard to explain it if you've never heard it.

176
00:10:15,200 --> 00:10:18,839
Speaker 1: You're splitting other than e're splitting and annoying between but

177
00:10:18,920 --> 00:10:21,840
Speaker 1: it does get your attention. Apparently it's the combined as

178
00:10:21,920 --> 00:10:25,000
Speaker 1: sign waves of eight hundred and fifty three hurts and

179
00:10:25,080 --> 00:10:29,320
Speaker 1: nine sixty hurts specifically chosen because it does grab your

180
00:10:29,360 --> 00:10:32,640
Speaker 1: attention because it's very jarring to hear it. It's just

181
00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:37,199
Speaker 1: you you can't ignore it. If you can hear you

182
00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:40,440
Speaker 1: can't ignore it. That's that's true. Um. And of course, uh,

183
00:10:41,120 --> 00:10:42,920
Speaker 1: those of us who are familiar with it other than

184
00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:46,280
Speaker 1: you know, being living somewhere where they're multiple weather uh

185
00:10:46,440 --> 00:10:51,079
Speaker 1: situations like tornadoes or tornadoes. Yeah, no kidding, Um, you

186
00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:54,960
Speaker 1: would probably have heard this through the the alerts which

187
00:10:55,240 --> 00:10:57,920
Speaker 1: Jonathan and I grew up with, which was yeah, they

188
00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:00,040
Speaker 1: would say they would come on and say, well, this

189
00:11:00,120 --> 00:11:02,599
Speaker 1: is a test of the emergency broadcast system, and for

190
00:11:02,720 --> 00:11:04,760
Speaker 1: the next sixty seconds, we will be testing out the

191
00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:06,880
Speaker 1: emergency broadcast system. It would there was actually a very

192
00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:09,559
Speaker 1: specific script that would fall and then there would be

193
00:11:09,760 --> 00:11:12,560
Speaker 1: after they would tell you there's a test coming. They

194
00:11:12,600 --> 00:11:16,200
Speaker 1: would play this tone, and then there'd be another message

195
00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:17,839
Speaker 1: that would appear at the end saying this was a

196
00:11:17,920 --> 00:11:20,000
Speaker 1: test of the emergency broadcast system. If this had been

197
00:11:20,040 --> 00:11:23,040
Speaker 1: a real emergency, you would have received more information at

198
00:11:23,080 --> 00:11:25,840
Speaker 1: this point alerting you to blah blah blah, blah blah,

199
00:11:25,880 --> 00:11:28,640
Speaker 1: we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming type stuff.

200
00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:30,719
Speaker 1: And they were required to do this test once in

201
00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:33,360
Speaker 1: a week. Yeah, regular, on a regular basis. I didn't

202
00:11:33,360 --> 00:11:35,439
Speaker 1: think it was quite that frequently. It was once a

203
00:11:35,480 --> 00:11:39,920
Speaker 1: week unless you had actually had to issue a real alert.

204
00:11:40,559 --> 00:11:42,240
Speaker 1: If you had to issue a real alert, you could

205
00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:44,760
Speaker 1: skip over some time. But it was once a week

206
00:11:44,840 --> 00:11:48,000
Speaker 1: at essentially a random time between eight thirty in the

207
00:11:48,080 --> 00:11:51,680
Speaker 1: morning and sunset at night, uh sometime during the week.

208
00:11:52,120 --> 00:11:56,200
Speaker 1: So it wasn't that we'll get into this too. There

209
00:11:56,280 --> 00:11:58,240
Speaker 1: wasn't a time where every single station had to do

210
00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:00,840
Speaker 1: it at the same time. It was unique to various stations,

211
00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:05,240
Speaker 1: and like you were saying, Chris, you know these alerts

212
00:12:05,640 --> 00:12:08,040
Speaker 1: went out not just for a national emergency. In fact,

213
00:12:08,080 --> 00:12:12,240
Speaker 1: they never went out on purpose for a national emergency instead,

214
00:12:12,640 --> 00:12:16,240
Speaker 1: uh so so never it was never used purposefully for

215
00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:19,440
Speaker 1: that reason, even though that was the genesis of this system,

216
00:12:20,120 --> 00:12:22,640
Speaker 1: it was used more than oh, I don't know, several

217
00:12:22,720 --> 00:12:27,160
Speaker 1: thousand times to alert for civil emergencies, sometimes an alert

218
00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:30,559
Speaker 1: about to be on the lookout for a suspect in

219
00:12:30,679 --> 00:12:33,760
Speaker 1: a in a particularly nasty crime that could be an alert,

220
00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:36,480
Speaker 1: or for the weather, alerts like the ones that Chris

221
00:12:36,520 --> 00:12:40,080
Speaker 1: and I grew up with. I can remember that happening

222
00:12:41,320 --> 00:12:46,880
Speaker 1: so many times. Deep this is just a test of

223
00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:49,400
Speaker 1: the fact that we're gonna go listen to a sponsor now.

224
00:12:57,160 --> 00:13:01,679
Speaker 1: The way the emergency broadcast system worked was that the

225
00:13:01,880 --> 00:13:05,880
Speaker 1: only message that no station could ignore or was supposed

226
00:13:05,880 --> 00:13:08,959
Speaker 1: to ignore, was a national one. Right, So, if you

227
00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:12,160
Speaker 1: are a radio station in the middle of nowhere and

228
00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:15,199
Speaker 1: the national alert goes out, you were supposed to to

229
00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:18,600
Speaker 1: broadcast it just like every other station in the country,

230
00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:22,600
Speaker 1: Whereas if it were a local or regional you may

231
00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:25,760
Speaker 1: or may not have been able to ignore that message.

232
00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:28,800
Speaker 1: And not broadcast it. The way it worked was that,

233
00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:31,640
Speaker 1: again like the Connel red system, where you had the

234
00:13:31,840 --> 00:13:35,040
Speaker 1: key stations, the basic key stations, and the relay key stations,

235
00:13:35,679 --> 00:13:38,840
Speaker 1: there was a similar setup for the emergency broadcast system.

236
00:13:39,760 --> 00:13:43,160
Speaker 1: You had these primary points of contact, which would be

237
00:13:43,280 --> 00:13:47,319
Speaker 1: major broadcast stations usually, but these primary points of contact

238
00:13:47,440 --> 00:13:50,719
Speaker 1: had to issue all broadcast all the alerts they got.

239
00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:53,120
Speaker 1: They had no choice because they were a primary point

240
00:13:53,160 --> 00:13:55,760
Speaker 1: of contact. But if you were further down the chain,

241
00:13:56,280 --> 00:13:59,120
Speaker 1: like you are a secondary point or further down, then

242
00:13:59,320 --> 00:14:03,080
Speaker 1: you could elect whether or not to broadcast that alert,

243
00:14:03,200 --> 00:14:05,720
Speaker 1: assuming it wasn't a national alert that was the only one.

244
00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:09,880
Speaker 1: Of course, everyone had to broadcast. So um, you know

245
00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:12,480
Speaker 1: there were that explains why you might be in an

246
00:14:12,559 --> 00:14:17,559
Speaker 1: area where a weather service alert is being broadcast and

247
00:14:17,679 --> 00:14:19,600
Speaker 1: you saw it on one channel, but you switched to

248
00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:22,920
Speaker 1: another local channel and there's nothing that could be why it.

249
00:14:23,040 --> 00:14:25,720
Speaker 1: Maybe that that other channels not a primary point and

250
00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:31,640
Speaker 1: therefore was not required to broadcast it. Um. Now, the

251
00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:37,080
Speaker 1: the incident that Jonathan mentioned, famous incident, Now I read

252
00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:39,520
Speaker 1: an account of this from a person who was working

253
00:14:39,960 --> 00:14:43,000
Speaker 1: at a radio station in St. Louis at the time.

254
00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:45,600
Speaker 1: It happened. Um. At the time it happened, by the way,

255
00:14:45,640 --> 00:14:49,480
Speaker 1: is February nine, yep. And what he had said was

256
00:14:49,640 --> 00:14:54,880
Speaker 1: that every Saturday at ten thirty three, the radio stations

257
00:14:54,880 --> 00:15:00,480
Speaker 1: would receive a test message from Cheyenne Mountain and Colorado.

258
00:15:01,320 --> 00:15:03,240
Speaker 1: And so basically it would say and there was a

259
00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:07,600
Speaker 1: code word that it would include that would let you

260
00:15:07,680 --> 00:15:11,200
Speaker 1: know that it was was genuine. And so at ten

261
00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:14,280
Speaker 1: thirty three, um, there there was a teletype machine in

262
00:15:14,320 --> 00:15:16,400
Speaker 1: the other room, and he heard it and and typically

263
00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:18,520
Speaker 1: it would it would dig a couple of times to

264
00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:20,920
Speaker 1: let you know, hey, there's something something on the wire,

265
00:15:21,320 --> 00:15:23,120
Speaker 1: you know, a news story on the wire. But this

266
00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:27,800
Speaker 1: one rang ten times, which he knew was a big deal. Um.

267
00:15:28,760 --> 00:15:31,520
Speaker 1: And so he ran into the other room and got

268
00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:37,320
Speaker 1: a message that said he needed to broadcast a warning

269
00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:41,360
Speaker 1: that there was an announcement coming from the national you know,

270
00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:45,480
Speaker 1: from the federal government and it was something bad and impending,

271
00:15:45,720 --> 00:15:48,440
Speaker 1: and be on the alert because it was time to

272
00:15:48,560 --> 00:15:52,040
Speaker 1: broadcast a message. But they really weren't told what that

273
00:15:52,120 --> 00:15:56,040
Speaker 1: message was, what it was. Well, here's the hateful, hateful,

274
00:15:56,640 --> 00:15:58,960
Speaker 1: the you know, which was a code word, meaning that

275
00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:01,160
Speaker 1: the code that was actually a code word. The hateful

276
00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:04,480
Speaker 1: was a code word that meant there's a messages coming up,

277
00:16:04,520 --> 00:16:07,240
Speaker 1: there's an attack coming up, but more details will follow.

278
00:16:07,920 --> 00:16:10,800
Speaker 1: Go ahead and initiate the alert system. And it was

279
00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:14,160
Speaker 1: a mistake that was made by a teletype operator who

280
00:16:14,240 --> 00:16:17,320
Speaker 1: sent this authenticated code out to the system, which meant

281
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:19,960
Speaker 1: it went to all those those primary points of contact,

282
00:16:20,160 --> 00:16:23,800
Speaker 1: and it didn't say it didn't say a minute later, oops,

283
00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:26,360
Speaker 1: my bad. No, no, it took a while, and in fact,

284
00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:28,760
Speaker 1: the first time they tried to resend it, they sent

285
00:16:28,960 --> 00:16:32,440
Speaker 1: the wrong code, so it didn't resend the message. It

286
00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:36,160
Speaker 1: was only forty minutes after the initial message was sent

287
00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:41,040
Speaker 1: out that the cancelation, the correct cancelation went out. So

288
00:16:41,400 --> 00:16:44,720
Speaker 1: what happened was actually very telling in a way because

289
00:16:44,920 --> 00:16:48,000
Speaker 1: some radio, radio and television stations, actually a lot of

290
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:50,440
Speaker 1: them didn't do anything at all, so they did not

291
00:16:50,560 --> 00:16:53,840
Speaker 1: broadcast this message, and that, in a way is a

292
00:16:53,920 --> 00:16:56,800
Speaker 1: problem because the whole purpose of the system is to

293
00:16:57,120 --> 00:17:01,040
Speaker 1: relay a national emergency to everybody. Now. Now, in many

294
00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:02,760
Speaker 1: of these cases, it may be that the people in

295
00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:06,320
Speaker 1: charge said, there's no information here, we have no real

296
00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:10,439
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a confirmed code, but there's no confirmed information.

297
00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:13,560
Speaker 1: And we have nothing to share with people, So why

298
00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:16,160
Speaker 1: would we go ahead and do this when we don't

299
00:17:16,200 --> 00:17:18,280
Speaker 1: have any information we could give them. Yeah, they were

300
00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:23,080
Speaker 1: standing by to broadcast whatever the major announcement was about

301
00:17:23,119 --> 00:17:28,159
Speaker 1: the attack. Right. Some of them hadn't even signaled the alert, right,

302
00:17:28,280 --> 00:17:31,000
Speaker 1: They just the programming just kept on going, But other

303
00:17:31,119 --> 00:17:33,520
Speaker 1: stations did. Some of them didn't know what to do,

304
00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:36,440
Speaker 1: so some of them weren't doing it on purpose. Some

305
00:17:36,520 --> 00:17:37,920
Speaker 1: of them weren't doing it because they didn't know what

306
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:40,560
Speaker 1: they were supposed to do. And a few actually broke

307
00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:43,040
Speaker 1: into programming and said, we've received an alert from the

308
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:46,840
Speaker 1: Emergency Broadcast System. We know that there is a national emergency.

309
00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:51,440
Speaker 1: We're awaiting for more information. Please stand by. And what

310
00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:54,320
Speaker 1: Chris was talking about earlier was there are there a

311
00:17:54,400 --> 00:17:56,280
Speaker 1: couple of recordings on the internet you can listen to

312
00:17:56,600 --> 00:17:59,680
Speaker 1: that we're taken from that day, and one of them

313
00:17:59,760 --> 00:18:02,760
Speaker 1: is um AND radio station from Fort Wayne, Indiana called

314
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:05,200
Speaker 1: w O w OH, and you can listen to that

315
00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:07,640
Speaker 1: and you can find it on the internet. The actual

316
00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:11,359
Speaker 1: it's snippets from that. Yeah, it's it's been edited. It's sorry,

317
00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:16,240
Speaker 1: it's been edited down so that you get uh sections

318
00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:20,000
Speaker 1: the important sections of of the broadcast. It's about what

319
00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:22,440
Speaker 1: six minutes or so long, right, keeping in mind that

320
00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:24,720
Speaker 1: that whole window was more like forty minutes. So this

321
00:18:24,840 --> 00:18:27,840
Speaker 1: is six minutes of footage footage from six minutes of

322
00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:30,600
Speaker 1: content from that forty minute window. Yeah. So basically what

323
00:18:30,760 --> 00:18:33,879
Speaker 1: it said was, you know, hey, there there's something coming up.

324
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:36,359
Speaker 1: It's it's um. It's one of those things that would

325
00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:38,879
Speaker 1: be funny if it weren't. If you don't put yourself

326
00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:40,920
Speaker 1: back at that time, it would have been terrifying. It

327
00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:43,440
Speaker 1: would have been terrifying because he's the person who was

328
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:46,040
Speaker 1: on the air. Was a you could tell, was it, uh,

329
00:18:46,359 --> 00:18:50,240
Speaker 1: seasoned newsperson? Yeah, yeah, he Uh. He was very serious

330
00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:52,760
Speaker 1: and said, you know, there's there's been a message. We're

331
00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:55,520
Speaker 1: waiting word for what's going on. Uh. If you are

332
00:18:55,640 --> 00:18:58,880
Speaker 1: listening and you are one of our reporters, come here immediately.

333
00:18:58,960 --> 00:19:03,040
Speaker 1: We need you here right now. And and basically was talking, uh,

334
00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:05,639
Speaker 1: not only to the audience, but to the the other

335
00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:08,720
Speaker 1: reporters who might be listening. The message itself actually said,

336
00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:13,600
Speaker 1: um message authenticator, hatefulness, hatefulness. This is an emergency action

337
00:19:13,680 --> 00:19:18,280
Speaker 1: notification directed by the President normal broadcasting will cease immediately.

338
00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:22,120
Speaker 1: All stations will broadcast e A N message one preceded

339
00:19:22,119 --> 00:19:25,440
Speaker 1: by the attention signal. Per FCC rules, only stations holding

340
00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:28,280
Speaker 1: nd N D e A may stay on the air

341
00:19:28,359 --> 00:19:31,480
Speaker 1: and according and accord with state E B S plan.

342
00:19:32,480 --> 00:19:37,120
Speaker 1: And UH that would have scared the pants off of me. Um.

343
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:40,399
Speaker 1: And it took a while, as Jonathan said, Uh, you know,

344
00:19:40,640 --> 00:19:42,920
Speaker 1: kill e A N message. It was sent in error

345
00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:45,960
Speaker 1: and it took a while for it to UH to

346
00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:49,760
Speaker 1: show up. But the person he the person who I was,

347
00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:51,399
Speaker 1: I was reading, I should have gotten the the U

348
00:19:51,520 --> 00:19:52,840
Speaker 1: R L if I can find it real quick for

349
00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:56,600
Speaker 1: you guys, I will um. The the person who was,

350
00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:01,240
Speaker 1: who has actually posted photos of UH scans of his

351
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:06,119
Speaker 1: copies of these messages, was saying, excuse the burn marks.

352
00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:09,840
Speaker 1: I was smoking pretty heavily through this instance, because I

353
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:12,720
Speaker 1: think it was kind of stressed out. If you listen

354
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:16,800
Speaker 1: to the recording from the w O w O U incident,

355
00:20:17,400 --> 00:20:21,640
Speaker 1: you actually hear the the newscaster kind of chuckling once

356
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:25,080
Speaker 1: the once the order was sent out about this was

357
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:27,720
Speaker 1: a mistake, and you know, kind of kind of because

358
00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:29,800
Speaker 1: you know, clearly it was one of those stressful things

359
00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:32,760
Speaker 1: and the chuckling is him releasing that stress, and it

360
00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:34,959
Speaker 1: is an interesting moment in history to kind of pick

361
00:20:35,080 --> 00:20:38,639
Speaker 1: up on that. Um. So yeah, not that was the

362
00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:42,879
Speaker 1: only time that a national alert went out across the system,

363
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:46,000
Speaker 1: and again it wasn't a real one. It was a mistake. UM.

364
00:20:46,520 --> 00:20:50,719
Speaker 1: And then what was supposed to happen is that, depending

365
00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:54,640
Speaker 1: upon the nature of the emergency, UH, stations are supposed

366
00:20:54,640 --> 00:20:58,200
Speaker 1: to read from a predetermined script like it's it's They're

367
00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:00,760
Speaker 1: not supposed to just you know, kind of i'd commentary

368
00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:03,240
Speaker 1: on it. There's a specific message that needs to be relayed.

369
00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:09,080
Speaker 1: And so that was the general purpose of the Emergency

370
00:21:09,119 --> 00:21:11,200
Speaker 1: Broadcast system, but it was starting to show its age

371
00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:14,399
Speaker 1: uh sparticularly in the nineties because you started to have

372
00:21:15,119 --> 00:21:20,280
Speaker 1: other methods of getting content on your television besides broadcast TV,

373
00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:25,480
Speaker 1: and the emergency Broadcast system really affected radio and broadcast television.

374
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:29,879
Speaker 1: So there needed to be an overhaul of the system,

375
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:32,200
Speaker 1: and that's what happened in the late nineties and in

376
00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:35,920
Speaker 1: nt you had the Emergency Alert System take its place.

377
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:39,359
Speaker 1: And now you might say, well, what's the difference. Well,

378
00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:43,080
Speaker 1: for one thing, it doesn't just include broadcast stations. It

379
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:47,120
Speaker 1: also includes cable and participating satellite systems. So now you've

380
00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:50,920
Speaker 1: got other methods of broadcast or or you know, other

381
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:53,960
Speaker 1: methods of getting content over your television included in this.

382
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:58,440
Speaker 1: So that way, if a citizen is watching cable television

383
00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 1: or something on satellite TV, they could still have access

384
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:06,080
Speaker 1: to an emergency message because clearly, you know, you don't

385
00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:08,679
Speaker 1: want to leave everybody out. As as people have more

386
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:11,600
Speaker 1: and more ways of watching stuff, it's harder to reach

387
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:15,000
Speaker 1: them in a centralized way. Yeah, these these systems were

388
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:18,720
Speaker 1: developed to run on AM and FM radio and the

389
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:21,800
Speaker 1: local broadcast stations. So now we've gone from in the

390
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 1: United States, UM, let's say, on average, probably three or

391
00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:30,119
Speaker 1: four regular network broadcast stations, maybe a couple independence in

392
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:33,160
Speaker 1: the larger you know, larger cities, something in the ultra

393
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:37,200
Speaker 1: high frequency. Yeah, you know, maybe uh six or six

394
00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:39,920
Speaker 1: to ten stations in big big markets. UM. Then you

395
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 1: go to dozens or even hundreds of stations now with

396
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 1: cable and satellite, UM, you know, plus uh you know

397
00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:52,400
Speaker 1: the radio stations which have exploded in number, UM, satellite

398
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:54,680
Speaker 1: radio and all the other media that we listen to. Now,

399
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,480
Speaker 1: so yeah, the system, there's a lot of people know

400
00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:01,119
Speaker 1: the system needed to to evolve with that development, and

401
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:04,200
Speaker 1: of course even now we're still we're already seeing a

402
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 1: need for that too, find another way of reaching people

403
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:11,160
Speaker 1: because as people start to use the Internet to get content,

404
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:15,160
Speaker 1: now there's yet another avenue for information to get to them.

405
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,280
Speaker 1: But you know, this system was not designed with that

406
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 1: in mind, so there's already another need coming out. We've

407
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:24,440
Speaker 1: got a little bit more to say about the emergency

408
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 1: broadcast system. Don't worry, there's no emergency going on. We're

409
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 1: just taking a quick break to thank our sponsor. The

410
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 1: way it works now, the National Weather Service actually has

411
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:46,040
Speaker 1: specific codes that they can attached to notices so that

412
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:50,119
Speaker 1: those digital codes will send the message just to the

413
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:53,879
Speaker 1: relevant regions. So that way, if there if the National

414
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,320
Speaker 1: Weather Service detects that there's going to be you know,

415
00:23:56,760 --> 00:24:00,040
Speaker 1: a massive hurricane hitting the panhandle of Florida, it and

416
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 1: send an alert to say, Texas and Florida and you know, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama,

417
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: all those areas that could potentially be affected by heavy rains, winds,

418
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, and the rest of the nation

419
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 1: is unaffected or even the rest you know, the rest

420
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: of certain states like the northern part of the state

421
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 1: might not be affected because they're far enough away from

422
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:24,439
Speaker 1: the coast where at least it's not gonna be an

423
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: immediate effect. They might not get the message either. Uh.

424
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 1: And it's so that the right information gets to the

425
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 1: right people. And it makes sense, you know, you don't

426
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: want to send out a message to the entire nation

427
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 1: that for something is just going to affect a relatively

428
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 1: small um area of the nation as a whole. United

429
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:46,920
Speaker 1: States is big, so uh, yeah, it was. It's something

430
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: that that has evolved over time. The and the other

431
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 1: thing I was going to talk about was what happened

432
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 1: on November nine. Yeah, Um, there is one sort of

433
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:01,120
Speaker 1: interesting footnote um to the the e B S ERA

434
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:06,159
Speaker 1: passing from to the E A S era UM. E

435
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,639
Speaker 1: B S was not activated during the September eleven, two

436
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: thousand and one attacks, um, which is kind of interesting

437
00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 1: that they chose not to do, uh to use the

438
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:21,160
Speaker 1: alert at that time, particularly since the attacks affected multiple

439
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 1: targets in multiple cities, so it would have affected even

440
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: more had not the flight in Pennsylvania gone down. So

441
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:35,120
Speaker 1: just just sort of an interesting footnote there. Um. But yes,

442
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:40,120
Speaker 1: on November nine, Uh, the e a S made its debut. Yeah,

443
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: and the system had been in place. But what happened

444
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 1: was because the system was was the e A S

445
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: was actually what would have been used in September eleven.

446
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: So on November, what happened was it was tested nationally.

447
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:00,159
Speaker 1: This was the first time any of these systems had

448
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: ever been tested on a national level, meaning that every

449
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: participating station was going to display the test at the

450
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: same time, and that time was going to be um

451
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 1: It was two pm Eastern for on November, which means

452
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 1: that if you didn't know about it ahead of time

453
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 1: and he turned on your television, you would see this

454
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 1: alert and you think, oh, this is irritating. This that

455
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 1: one of those stupid tests, and change the channel and

456
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 1: that alert is still going and it's going on the ocean. Oh,

457
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 1: this is something. And so there were a lot of

458
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 1: messages that were sent out before two pm November to

459
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: let people know, Hey, this is gonna happen. Don't worry.

460
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 1: The zombies aren't here yet, right, or whatever other national

461
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: emergency you might be able to conjure up in your mind.

462
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: I just cannot imagine a national emergency at this point

463
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 1: that does not involve zombies, right, right, well there are

464
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 1: According to the Christian Science Monitor, UM, there were fourteen

465
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:02,480
Speaker 1: thousand and more podcast stations both for TV and radio,

466
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 1: plus more than uh ten thousand cable TV stations. So

467
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: this is all being done at the same time. UM,

468
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 1: and uh it's able to reach a lot more people.

469
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: But they're already talking about, um, how they can reach

470
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 1: people via text message and in other locations. UM. You know,

471
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 1: they're they're already talking again about how they can improve

472
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: this this system to make it reach more people. UM,

473
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: which is uh, you know, kind of funny since it

474
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 1: probably reaches more now than it ever has before. UM.

475
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 1: But I can imagine that it's going to do things

476
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 1: like promoted tweets. Yeah, yeah, well there you laugh. But

477
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 1: I can easily imagine that it's just you know, and

478
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 1: I absolutely see it. Um and it Uh. It's also

479
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 1: important to to realize that this does more than just

480
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: announced state an attack like connal rad would. Um. There

481
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 1: are more and I believe eighty different kinds of messages

482
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: they can use the e A s for, including things

483
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: like childhood abduction alerts. Yes, and uh. Here here in Atlanta,

484
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: we have a highway that goes around the outside of

485
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 1: the city known as the perimeter obvious reasons, Yeah, highway

486
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 1: or Interstate eighty five, And there are electronic signs that

487
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: they can use, and a lot of a lot of

488
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 1: times you'll see stuff like, well there's a traffic up ahead,

489
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: or be you know, be aware there's an accident um.

490
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 1: But they also use this messaging on those signs as well.

491
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: So that's a way for people to uh, for the

492
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: authorities to reach us with these kinds of messages. On

493
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 1: the side, note, how can a highway that encircles a

494
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: city that's all within one state be an interstate? Jonathan,

495
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: I'm just asking these are questions that appear that that

496
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: happened in my head, and I want to know why

497
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 1: do you drive on a parkway in parking and driveway?

498
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: I also want to know that I don't name these things,

499
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 1: I just report them. If our legs bent backwards, what

500
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: would the chair look like? What if there were no

501
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: hypothetical questions? That's terrible, all right, So now now that

502
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: we've totally killed that, but yeah, the the ass is

503
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: supposed to be able to turn on certain types of

504
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: radios and TVs and other devices to allow people to

505
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: receive these emergency messages, which of course will inspire many

506
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: people to go you know, the government is trying to

507
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: take over our world, um, which is all right for

508
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: them to say, I suppose, but UM yeah, I mean

509
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: they're they're ways for for them to reach us in

510
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: to let us know if there's something important that we

511
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: should be aware of. Um. So you know, it really

512
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: has involved quite a bit since the nineteen fifties when

513
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 1: the first system was put into place, and similar systems

514
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: to this are in place in other countries around the world.

515
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: We specifically focus on this one because it's the country

516
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: we live in. So again, apologies to all of our

517
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 1: listeners overseas. Hopefully this was interesting to you, just on

518
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 1: on the level of how do you take something as

519
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 1: simple in in concept as getting a message out? How

520
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: do you take that and then apply it to a

521
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 1: very complex world. And uh, it's an interesting approach. It's

522
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: not necessarily the best one either. There may be other

523
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: approaches that would be um that would be more efficient

524
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 1: and more effective than the emergency alert system, but you know,

525
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: that's what we have. So if you guys live in

526
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 1: a country that has a similar system but it works

527
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: on a different way, let us know, tell us, tell

528
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: us about it, you know, if you're familiar with that

529
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: kind of thing, because I find it really interesting. I mean,

530
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 1: it's a very important concept and it's, like I said,

531
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 1: this is not the only way to get it to work. Yeah,

532
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 1: and it's it's a challenge to reach that many people,

533
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 1: UM in a in a very short time, to let

534
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 1: them know that there's something big and important that they

535
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: need to know it's a matter of public safety or

536
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: a public concern. We've definitely come a long way for

537
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: um A guy on horseback writing yelling out the British

538
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:05,840
Speaker 1: are coming, The British are coming. Well, guys, I hope

539
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this classic episode of tech Stuff. It was

540
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 1: fun to go back and revisit this, uh, this, this

541
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 1: system that again. It's very important, kind of scary, kind

542
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: of interesting. And let me know if it hit any

543
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 1: nostalgia buttons for you. Let me know what you guys thought,

544
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 1: and if you have any suggestions for future episodes of

545
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, whether it's a technology, a company, a person

546
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: in tech, anything like that, send me an email. The

547
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: address is tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,

548
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: or drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter at

549
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 1: tech Stuff hs W don't forget to follow us on Instagram.

550
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 1: And hey, if you have not checked out the merchandise

551
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 1: store at t public dot com slash tech stuff, why

552
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 1: do you want me to be poor? Huh? Why go

553
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: to that store? There's really cool stuff there. Their T shirts,

554
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 1: their mugs, there's hope bags, they're stickers, there's there's magnets,

555
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of stuff. You can get it with

556
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: tech stuff, logos, all these things, you know, and and

557
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 1: I know if you buy stuff, by the way I

558
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: know it. I get a report sad buy things, and

559
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: I'll tell to you again really soon for more on

560
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff

561
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: works dot com