[EAS] Sandy & CAP

[Randall Miller]

It looks to me like the New Jersey OEM transmitted a weekly test (!) on Tuesday morning via CAP:

"A CIVIL AUTHORITY HAS ISSUED A REQUIRED WEEKLY TEST FOR THE FOLLOWING COUNTIES/AREAS: New Jersey; AT 6:26 AM ON OCT 30, 2012 EFFECTIVE UNTIL 7:26 AM. MESSAGE FROM IPAWSCAP. 
The New Jersey Office of Emergency Management is conducting a test of the Emergency Alert System. Had this been an actual emergency, the attention signal you just heard would have been followed by official information or instructions. This concludes this test of the Emergency alert system. "

The National Weather Service around here will postpone or eliminate testing if there are weather events of note going on that same day, and that seems like a good policy to me.

I was surprised to see a weekly test coming from New Jersey on Tuesday morning, considering what was going on there!

Randall Miller
KOBI-TV, Medford Oregon
rmiller at kobi5.com
541.779.5555

-----Original Message-----
From: eas-bounces at radiolists.net [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Kluger, Michael

I can't speak for New Jersey, but I can tell you about the New York City EAS operational area.  The only message that was sent via IPAWS to New York City was the normal Monday Morning RWT, and there was no EAS activation for the NYC area by state or local officials.  As far as NWS, we did get some flood warnings and high wind warnings for New York and/or New Jersey on Sunday and Monday, but then the over the air NWS feed for the NYC operational area went out on Tuesday because of a telco outage, and his been down since.  They are still waiting for telco repair to get them back up.

On another note, we did lose one of the AM LP-1 stations in NYC for part of a day due to flooding at their transmitter site in New Jersey, but since NYC has 5 LP-1 stations (four AM and one FM), the area was never without LP-1 service.

Michael Kluger
Director of Broadcast Operations and Information Technology, WNYE-TV & FM NYC Mayor's Office of Media & Entertainment
718-250-5808
mkluger at media.nyc.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: eas-bounces at radiolists.net [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Adrienne Abbott

All-

Did FEMA send any EAS or other public warnings during the Sandy Superstorm via CAP? Did state/local officials use CAP to send any EAS or other warning messages? Before Sandy there was an article on problems with the new EAS in New Jersey. Was it used for the storm? 

Adrienne Abbott
Nevada EAS Chair