April 20, 2023 • 5 mins
A "procedural error" is blamed for an emergency test that woke up millions of Floridians before 5 a.m. Thursday morning. The state has fired the contractor and both have apologized. Many of us are vowing to turn off phone alerts. We speak with Austin Flannery of the National Weather Service office in Ruskin (Tampa) on why that may be a life-changing mistake.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Gordon Bird herewith Beyond the News.If you live in Florida, you likely
if you have a phone, andif you had it turned on the morning
of Thursday morning, you received analarm from the state's emergency alert system.
And that alarm, we are toldwas not intentionally sent out. Apparently there
(00:22):
was a glitch in the system.The alarm that you received was supposed to
go to television stations, but insteadit went out to phones around the state
because of an error that the state'sDivision of Emergency Management is looking into.
And some of you may have beentempted after you were awakened by that call
(00:43):
at four or forty five in themorning Eastern time, you might have been
tempted to turn off all alerts onyour phone so that you don't receive the
alerts that come in from the EASanymore. And there is at least one
good reason not to do that.We're going to talk now with us in
Flannery. He's a forecaster at theNational Weather Service office for the Tampa Bay
Area in Ruskin, Austin. Welcometo Beyond the News. Hi, good
(01:08):
afternoon. Talk to us if youcould about how the National Weather Service uses
EAS and those phone alerts to getsevere weather information that is very timely out
to the public. Obviously, everybodyneeds a way of receiving weather information,
and a version of eas the emergencyalert system that we use, and what
(01:30):
a lot of folks became very familiarwith this morning was the wireless Emergency Alert
system or we as we often referto it. So the wireless emergency alert
is a way that we can sendout alerts for severe weather to the public.
What's cool about this system is itallows us to send out targeted alerts.
So say we issue a tornado warning, it's only going to send that
(01:51):
alert to the individuals who are withinour tornado warning itself. It's not going
to alert everybody, which was moreof a historical way of providing information to
people. So it's a really greatsystem. It's very powerful for us,
and as we all became very awareof this morning, it can startle you
awake at night when it alerts,so that's a good thing. And I
(02:12):
think this morning test certainly shows that, while of course the activation this morning
was inadvertent, it shows that thesystem works because it woke folks up like
it should, right because if atornado is coming towards you in the middle
of the night. You want tobe awakened by the system. You want
to know that that's happening. Sothe system is designed to do just that.
So a lot of times as well, in Florida, we see our
(02:36):
most significant potential for severe weather overnightwhile folks are sleeping. So being awakened
in your sleep is a good thing. Unfortunately, this morning it was a
bit of an inconvenience and I myself, like many others, were woken up
by the alert as well. Butit is an important system. It's important
to keep those alerts turned on becausethat information is being provided via the system
(02:57):
could potentially save your life in certaincircumstances. So this is why it's important
to resist the temptation to say,oh the heck with it, I'm just
going to turn off those alerts andI'm not going to receive any of those
alerts on my phone, because thisis something that could be a life saving
situation if you get some severe weatherin the middle of the night. Yeah,
(03:20):
potentially, it's very tempting to justdisable those alerts. And you know,
certain phones may have some individual settingswhere you can turn off, say
like the attest alerts or things likethat, but largely it's best to just
leave the alerts on so that youget that information in the middle of the
night. And we stress having multipleways to receive weather alerts, and you
know, one of the biggest andmost powerful ways that we can provide that
(03:42):
information to you is via your cellphone. And cell phones are so often,
you know, they're attached to ourhips for a large chunk of the
day. They're often near us atnight while we sleep that information that you
need to get that information to beable to get it into a timely fashion,
and a phone is certainly one ofmany tools that individuals can use to
get that information. So keeping thosealerts on is definitely important to be able
(04:04):
to get any alerts that are issued, and just so people understand the eas
through your phone is one of manypathways that those alerts take. If a
tornado warning goes out, it's goingto go out also on the familiar weather
radios that are set up to receivean alert for your particular area, and
(04:24):
obviously you want to program it foryour area so you're not getting alerts for
some place fifty miles away. Andthat alert also goes on certain radio and
TV stations that are set up andprogrammed to send out an alert when a
weather warning is issued for their particularregion or the regions that they serve exactly.
(04:45):
Yeah, so there are multiple meansof getting the information, and both
broadcast and radio stations provide that information. And then as you mentioned, Noah
Weather Radio, which is a networkof radio transmitters that the National Weather Service
owns and maintains, we provide thatinformation. It's always broadcasting weather information twenty
four seven. But you can buya specific radio that you can set to
(05:10):
an alert mode, and you canset it to your area, so you're
not if you live, say inTampa, you're not getting alerts for Fort
Myers, for instance, and youcan set that so that it also can
alert you in the middle of thenight to any time that there's severe weather
in your area. So yeah,it's the wireless emergency alert system on your
cell phone is just one tool,but it's an incredibly powerful one. And
always it's always important to have multipleways to receive weather information. So don't
(05:34):
turn off those eas weather alerts onyour cell phone. Yeah, it's definitely
not a very good idea to turnthose alerts off. Because the information provided
could just save your life. AustinFlattery, forecaster with the National Weather Service
Office for the Tampa Bay Area inRuskin, thank you very much for joining
us on beyond the news. Thankyou
Gordon Bird herewith Beyond the News.If you live in Florida, you likely
if you have a phone, andif you had it turned on the morning
of Thursday morning, you received analarm from the state's emergency alert system.
And that alarm, we are toldwas not intentionally sent out. Apparently there
(00:22):
was a glitch in the system.The alarm that you received was supposed to
go to television stations, but insteadit went out to phones around the state
because of an error that the state'sDivision of Emergency Management is looking into.
And some of you may have beentempted after you were awakened by that call
(00:43):
at four or forty five in themorning Eastern time, you might have been
tempted to turn off all alerts onyour phone so that you don't receive the
alerts that come in from the EASanymore. And there is at least one
good reason not to do that.We're going to talk now with us in
Flannery. He's a forecaster at theNational Weather Service office for the Tampa Bay
Area in Ruskin, Austin. Welcometo Beyond the News. Hi, good
(01:08):
afternoon. Talk to us if youcould about how the National Weather Service uses
EAS and those phone alerts to getsevere weather information that is very timely out
to the public. Obviously, everybodyneeds a way of receiving weather information,
and a version of eas the emergencyalert system that we use, and what
(01:30):
a lot of folks became very familiarwith this morning was the wireless Emergency Alert
system or we as we often referto it. So the wireless emergency alert
is a way that we can sendout alerts for severe weather to the public.
What's cool about this system is itallows us to send out targeted alerts.
So say we issue a tornado warning, it's only going to send that
(01:51):
alert to the individuals who are withinour tornado warning itself. It's not going
to alert everybody, which was moreof a historical way of providing information to
people. So it's a really greatsystem. It's very powerful for us,
and as we all became very awareof this morning, it can startle you
awake at night when it alerts,so that's a good thing. And I
(02:12):
think this morning test certainly shows that, while of course the activation this morning
was inadvertent, it shows that thesystem works because it woke folks up like
it should, right because if atornado is coming towards you in the middle
of the night. You want tobe awakened by the system. You want
to know that that's happening. Sothe system is designed to do just that.
So a lot of times as well, in Florida, we see our
(02:36):
most significant potential for severe weather overnightwhile folks are sleeping. So being awakened
in your sleep is a good thing. Unfortunately, this morning it was a
bit of an inconvenience and I myself, like many others, were woken up
by the alert as well. Butit is an important system. It's important
to keep those alerts turned on becausethat information is being provided via the system
(02:57):
could potentially save your life in certaincircumstances. So this is why it's important
to resist the temptation to say,oh the heck with it, I'm just
going to turn off those alerts andI'm not going to receive any of those
alerts on my phone, because thisis something that could be a life saving
situation if you get some severe weatherin the middle of the night. Yeah,
(03:20):
potentially, it's very tempting to justdisable those alerts. And you know,
certain phones may have some individual settingswhere you can turn off, say
like the attest alerts or things likethat, but largely it's best to just
leave the alerts on so that youget that information in the middle of the
night. And we stress having multipleways to receive weather alerts, and you
know, one of the biggest andmost powerful ways that we can provide that
(03:42):
information to you is via your cellphone. And cell phones are so often,
you know, they're attached to ourhips for a large chunk of the
day. They're often near us atnight while we sleep that information that you
need to get that information to beable to get it into a timely fashion,
and a phone is certainly one ofmany tools that individuals can use to
get that information. So keeping thosealerts on is definitely important to be able
(04:04):
to get any alerts that are issued, and just so people understand the eas
through your phone is one of manypathways that those alerts take. If a
tornado warning goes out, it's goingto go out also on the familiar weather
radios that are set up to receivean alert for your particular area, and
(04:24):
obviously you want to program it foryour area so you're not getting alerts for
some place fifty miles away. Andthat alert also goes on certain radio and
TV stations that are set up andprogrammed to send out an alert when a
weather warning is issued for their particularregion or the regions that they serve exactly.
(04:45):
Yeah, so there are multiple meansof getting the information, and both
broadcast and radio stations provide that information. And then as you mentioned, Noah
Weather Radio, which is a networkof radio transmitters that the National Weather Service
owns and maintains, we provide thatinformation. It's always broadcasting weather information twenty
four seven. But you can buya specific radio that you can set to
(05:10):
an alert mode, and you canset it to your area, so you're
not if you live, say inTampa, you're not getting alerts for Fort
Myers, for instance, and youcan set that so that it also can
alert you in the middle of thenight to any time that there's severe weather
in your area. So yeah,it's the wireless emergency alert system on your
cell phone is just one tool,but it's an incredibly powerful one. And
always it's always important to have multipleways to receive weather information. So don't
(05:34):
turn off those eas weather alerts onyour cell phone. Yeah, it's definitely
not a very good idea to turnthose alerts off. Because the information provided
could just save your life. AustinFlattery, forecaster with the National Weather Service
Office for the Tampa Bay Area inRuskin, thank you very much for joining
us on beyond the news. Thankyou
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