[EAS] EAS and WEA usage during the protests/riots/civil unrest

[Dave Kline]

This last Saturday, I was on a phone call, when an incoming WEA interrupted the call by disconnecting us. The purpose of the WEA was to remind me that the city had reinstated the curfew for the weekend.
I received the alert sometime in the afternoon to remind me about an event that did not go into effect until 10 PM that night. What's more frustrating is that I thought I turned off WEA on that phone. I received no such alerts about the previous curfews.

I question if sending an alert to remind us of something that won't happen for many hours yet, and has no immediate effect to life or property is an appropriate use of the system?

On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 11:30 AM Ed Czarnecki <ed.czarnecki at digitalalertsystems.com> wrote:
>FEMA recently posted a factoid regarding EAS/WEA usage during the civil unrest around the country.  They reported that, as of June 4th, 2020, authorities issued 30 EAS alerts, and 155 Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) messages across the United States.  These alerts provided information about curfews, road closures, and public transportation cancellations.

>I looked through logs sampled from across the country, and it appears that CEM has been the most frequently used event code for these type of informational/warning messages.

>Ed

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Dave Kline - Solder Jockey
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