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WWL EAS test

T

TheTiger

Last night when I was tuning the AM dial, I heard that WWL ran an EAS test around 1:45am. On the test, the announcers read that this was a coordinated monthly test of the broadcasters in the Louisiana area and went on to say that "if this is an actual emergency, such as floods, tornados, evacuations, toxic spills, or any other emergency situations, the message would have been followed by an alert tone". It did not even mention hurricanes, since this is arguably fits the emergency category and qualifies for an EAS activation. This was picked up by skywave signal from Pennsylvania and their signal is decent.

In late 2002, when Hurricane Isadore was approaching the Louisiana coast, WWL was known on-air as the "Emergency Alert Station", providing evacuation infos, road closures, updated hurricane informations and more. Now that everyone is bringing up memories about Katrina, I need to know why are several N.O. broadcast stations refusing to run EAS warnings. Here in PA, I heard several ones for flash floods, tornadoes, and child abductions, but from what I heard, WWL never ran an EAS warning about Hurricane Katrina. Katrina is now considered the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, almost topping out Andrew that struck Florida in '92.

I am just curious if any N.O. stations besides WWL ran last night's EAS test.
 
> Last night when I was tuning the AM dial, I heard that WWL
> ran an EAS test around 1:45am. On the test, the announcers
> read that this was a coordinated monthly test of the
> broadcasters in the Louisiana area and went on to say that
> "if this is an actual emergency, such as floods, tornados,
> evacuations, toxic spills, or any other emergency
> situations, the message would have been followed by an alert
> tone". It did not even mention hurricanes, since this is
> arguably fits the emergency category and qualifies for an
> EAS activation. This was picked up by skywave signal from
> Pennsylvania and their signal is decent.
>
> In late 2002, when Hurricane Isadore was approaching the
> Louisiana coast, WWL was known on-air as the "Emergency
> Alert Station", providing evacuation infos, road closures,
> updated hurricane informations and more. Now that everyone
> is bringing up memories about Katrina, I need to know why
> are several N.O. broadcast stations refusing to run EAS
> warnings. Here in PA, I heard several ones for flash floods,
> tornadoes, and child abductions, but from what I heard, WWL
> never ran an EAS warning about Hurricane Katrina. Katrina is
> now considered the deadliest natural disaster in U.S.
> history, almost topping out Andrew that struck Florida in
> '92.
>
> I am just curious if any N.O. stations besides WWL ran last
> night's EAS test.
>
all commercial stations do that once a month..<P ID="signature">______________
note to the NAB..satellite radio..its worth paying for!!</P>
 
> Last night when I was tuning the AM dial, I heard that WWL
> ran an EAS test around 1:45am. On the test, the announcers
> read that this was a coordinated monthly test of the
> broadcasters in the Louisiana area and went on to say that
> "if this is an actual emergency, such as floods, tornados,
> evacuations, toxic spills, or any other emergency
> situations, the message would have been followed by an alert
> tone". It did not even mention hurricanes, since this is
> arguably fits the emergency category and qualifies for an
> EAS activation. This was picked up by skywave signal from
> Pennsylvania and their signal is decent.

Hurricanes are usually NOT included in EAS alerts because most BCers consider EAS for sudden emergencies which a hurricane is not...people KNOW its approaching with days of notice...even though there is an EAS code for hurricane and Tsunami, they seem a waste of effort for most (actually tsunami may be more in line with EAS than hurricane)

> In late 2002, when Hurricane Isadore was approaching the
> Louisiana coast, WWL was known on-air as the "Emergency
> Alert Station", providing evacuation infos, road closures,
> updated hurricane informations and more. Now that everyone
> is bringing up memories about Katrina, I need to know why
> are several N.O. broadcast stations refusing to run EAS
> warnings. Here in PA, I heard several ones for flash floods,
> tornadoes, and child abductions, but from what I heard, WWL
> never ran an EAS warning about Hurricane Katrina. Katrina is
> now considered the deadliest natural disaster in U.S.
> history, almost topping out Andrew that struck Florida in
> '92.

Again, all the things you mention above are sudden with no early warning...the hurricane is a different animal...

>
> I am just curious if any N.O. stations besides WWL ran last
> night's EAS test.

Look at what you stated above:
the announcers
> read that this was a coordinated monthly test of the
> broadcasters in the Louisiana area

The Monthly test (RMT) is originated by the Primary Entry Point station for the region (called the PEP)...ALL other stations rebroadcast the MONTHLY test down the chain (The PEP, which WWL is, then gets repeated by the locally Local Primary 1 and 2...called LP1 and 2...the LP1 is a station for a specfic area that covers most of the area and stations in that area monitor the LP1 and backup LP2 for EAS alerts...WWL is a PEP for regional/S LA alerts AND is also the LP1 for NO area; stations in other areas are LP1s for their area but monitor WWL)
Weekly tests (RWT)are originated by EVERY station and do NOT get repeated down the chain...RMTs must be repeated within 15mins (this has been proposed to be changed to 1 hour but I am not sure it is in effect yet)...so once WWL sends its RMT, the LPs down the chain and the stations in the NO area MUST send the RMT from WWL within the required time...thus a RMT make take over an hour before it gets sent by the final station...A RWT is sent locally and never repeated...they are required to be send at irregular times once a week...the RMT can be substituted for sending the RWT.

FCC regs only require the RMT and the RWT be sent...nothing else...
I know of a Spanish station in Houston that will REFUSES to carry wx alerts from the NWS or the LP1 (OR any other alert including Amber alerts, etc) because they are in ENGLISH...so they only send the RMT (which is in English too) or the RWT (which usually does not have any announcement in it...just the duck fart tones)
 
RWT (Required Weekly Test) is the only EAS message a station can originate. All other messages, including the RMT (required monthly test) you heard, must originate with local or national authorities. If no emergency authority in New Orleans activated EAS for Katrina, WWL couldn't do it for them. (I suppose the NWS would have been the appropriate authority)

A station does have the option of choosing which messages it will relay. (except for RMT, EAN (Emergency Action Notification), and EAT (Emergency Action Termination) which MUST be relayed)

The TV station I work for relays only the three required messages. (thank God so far RMT is the only one we've needed to relay!) Basically we feel our meteorologists can do a better job. And that we'd rather not have them interrupted (maybe in the middle of pointing out some hook echo the Weather Service hasn't seen yet?) for the automatic retransmission of some alert our viewers already know about.

I suspect many news/talk radio stations (like WWL) feel likewise.

The automatic relay can be a valuable tool for automated and satellite-fed stations though.
 
The reason is

There is no EAS Code for hurricanes

The weather EAS codes are:
TOR - Tornado Warning
FFW - Flash Flood Warning
SVR - Severe Thunderstorm Warning
FLW - Flood Warning
WSW - Winter Storm Warning
BZW - Blizzard Warning
HWW - High Wind Warning
SMW - Special Marine Warning
TOA - Tornado Watch
SVA - Severe Thunderstorm Watch
SVS - Severe Weather Statement
SPS - Special Weather Statement
FEA - Flash Flood Watch
FFS - Flash Flood Statement
FLA - Flood Watch
FLS - Flood Statement
WSA - Winter Storm Watch
HWA - High Wind Watch

The EAS units decode based on these three digit codes.
So RMT, and any other activation will not mention a type
of emergency that isn't listed.


> Last night when I was tuning the AM dial, I heard that WWL
> ran an EAS test around 1:45am. On the test, the announcers
> read that this was a coordinated monthly test of the
> broadcasters in the Louisiana area and went on to say that
> "if this is an actual emergency, such as floods, tornados,
> evacuations, toxic spills, or any other emergency
> situations, the message would have been followed by an alert
> tone". It did not even mention hurricanes, since this is
> arguably fits the emergency category and qualifies for an
> EAS activation. This was picked up by skywave signal from
> Pennsylvania and their signal is decent.
 
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