On April 12 at 1:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m., two statewide tests of the Tornado Warning EAS code were conducted in Wisconsin. The tests were originally scheduled for April 11, but needed to be postponed for a day due to the threat of severe weather. All members of the test team appreciated the stellar job done by Wisconsin broadcasters of informing the public of the date change.
The tests were originated independently by the five National Weather Service (NWS) offices that serve Wisconsin, and those NWS offices did a good job of issuing the tests at the exact same time in all areas leading to well synchronized tests statewide. Although the tests were largely successful, there were some issues of human error both at NWS and broadcast stations. In addition, there were some issues of automated systems relaying the tests in a manner that made the tests look like real alerts, both at broadcast stations and by county emergency management social media applications around the state. As our processes and systems get more numerous and complicated these days, the test team will be issuing a reminder with next year’s test promotion for all parties to increase their diligence in analyzing the operation of their systems for unintended alerting during the test.
This test day is another fine example of the close cooperation between your WBA and Wisconsin’s broadcasters, NWS, and Wisconsin Emergency Management (WEM). WBA thanks all Wisconsin broadcasters for your participation in not only airing this year’s tests, but in the time you devoted to promoting the tests in the week leading up to test day and the huge effort to get the word out on the date change.
On a related note, the FCC recently released the results of the October 3, 2018 Nationwide EAS Test. Although numbers were not broken out by state, these were the nationwide numbers for all reporting EAS Participants (radio, TV, and cable): 96 percent successfully received the test, 92 percent successfully retransmitted the test, and 96 percent reported no complications with the test. Transmission without complications was significantly improved over the 2017 nationwide test results, while the other numbers remained largely the same. The FCC and FEMA have indicated their intent to continue these tests, with the next one to be issued in fall of 2019.
