Blast from the past: the emergency broadcast system

R

Robdraggoo

Member
It's only a test

This morning on my commute, I heard something I hadn't heard since I was a child on the radio. The test of the emergency broadcast system. I remember it comming on so often on tv and radio when I was younger but hadn't heard it in a long time.

Has any one heard it when it wasn't a test?
What emergencies would use of this system?
 
Robdraggoo said:
It's only a test

This morning on my commute, I heard something I hadn't heard since I was a child on the radio. The test of the emergency broadcast system. I remember it comming on so often on tv and radio when I was younger but hadn't heard it in a long time.

Has any one heard it when it wasn't a test?
What emergencies would use of this system?
Click to expand...
I lived in an area that's been hit by a Tsunami, so we have that.

We had one probably 10 years ago that wasn't a test warning about an incoming tsunami (didn't happen). Scary as fuck though.
 
Severe weather, typically. There was one weekend early this year where something like 40 tornados hit Georgia. While I was driving home from Florida I heard warnings pretty much the whole way.
 
shit used to scare the fuck out of me when I was kid. watching tv secretly late at night, and then those noises would come on.
 
In michigan we test the tornando sirens the first staurday of every month at 1:00pm sharp. I think these are repurposed from their original job as air raid sirens? My mother still calls them that actually. They were also called civil defense sirens.
 
I hear it once every few months when it comes on the radio. Most of the time it's for a test. There have been a few times when it cuts on for severe storms, but that's a rarity. The last time I heard that was when we had a tornado warning in the area.
 
Always felt a sense of uneasiness/dread when I hear it, even if it's only a test.

Growing up in Texas, with severe weather being a routine, thing will do that to you I guess. What's funny is that I got over my fear of tornadoes but that noise still makes me uneasy. Similarly, tornado sirens make me feel the same.
 
Robdraggoo said:
It's only a test

This morning on my commute, I heard something I hadn't heard since I was a child on the radio. The test of the emergency broadcast system. I remember it comming on so often on tv and radio when I was younger but hadn't heard it in a long time.

Has any one heard it when it wasn't a test?
What emergencies would use of this system?
Click to expand...

I hadn't heard it be more of a test until I went from Louisiana to Colorado. But Colorado has seasons and Louisiana doesn't really XD.
 
True Underdog said:
Always felt a sense of uneasiness/dread when I hear it, even if it's only a test.

Growing up in Texas, with severe weather being a routine, thing will do that to you I guess. What's funny is that I got over my fear of tornadoes but that noise still makes me uneasy. Similarly, tornado sirens make me feel the same.
Click to expand...
This is like me to a T. I used to be deathly afraid of tornados for some reason when I was a kid but managed to get over it yet anytime that warning comes on it scares the crap outta me.
 
In Prague they have a speaker system around the city. The first Wednesday (or maybe it's Thursday) of the month they give it a test for a minute or so. It only speaks in Czech so I wonder what foreigners who are only visiting must be thinking. But considering that nobody around them would be acting oddly they probably assume all is fine. Well, it is fine.
 
I've never heard one in an actual emergency situation but I get the test signal about 1-2 times a week through my tv and have been for quite some time.
 
Wait does this not go off around the country regularly?
We still do it frequently in CA.

You can hear it on radios/tv and it will definitely go off on your cell phone.
 
Probably getting ready for the nukes.

I do remember this though. I'm in Canada but it would play on the Buffalo channels.
 
I watched a lot of TV from Buffalo when I was a kid, US stations had better cartoons than Canadian ones, so I heard the Emergency Broadcast System test quite often. It was haunting and mesmerizing at the same time.

But it was always a just a test. Buffalo is pretty mundane.

Oddly enough, Canada only started a similar system last year.
 
Always makes me think of that Dexter's Lab episode where the TV gets interrupted by the EBS.

I'm kinda fascinated by it, as creepy as it is, probably because we don't really have anything like that in this country. I watch mock ups on YouTube all the time.
 
One time when I was a kid we had a crazy thunder storm and the EBS came on about a tornado warning and to seek shelter in your basements and shit (live in NJ so not something that I ever expected to happen) My mom was at work and I remember being scared shitless she was gonna die
 
That is a weekly occurrence here in Iowa during storm season.
My parents had an actual weather radio and hearing that robot voice still gives me PTSD.
 
That high pitch whine that the emergency broadcast system used to use was like a trigger for fear. Since they changed it to the weird digital beeping for the emergency alert system it just isn't the same. =/
 
Ok see the tests with relative frequency but I never saw a real emergency broadcast until a tornado warning in Virginia recently

On 9/11 there was nothing. Then again most of the TV stations were offline
 
I'm glad we don't have anything like that in the UK. If I didn't know it was a test I'd be fucking terrified if something like that came on TV. When TV was interrupted to break the news of Mandela's death I almost had a mini heart attack before I learnt what it was all about.
 
We get these all the time in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During thunderstorms, there are often flash floods along our creeks and streams. So - they always pop-in with the Emergency Broadcast System on local TV to give people alerts about specific areas that might have flash flooding.

I guess the thinking is that they are most likely to get a large portion of a community's attention by having a quick alert on local TV, so that people will alert their family and neighbors.

I get the same alerts on my cell phone.
 
I remember hearing it quite often when I was growing up that I started to tune it out until one time right before a major hurricane, because this time it was "This is not a test..." and I was like "Whoa, it's for real this time!"
 
I used to live about 5 miles from a nuclear power plant, so we had a siren system in place in case shit ever hit the fan.

They blew that siren for tornados as well.

Shit is haunting.
 
They usually come though our phones here in Ohio whenever theres severe weather. Sort of like the original one from back in the day. First time i heard it, scared the shit out of me bc it bypasses all sound settings to be loud as hell.

edit: here it is
 
If you watch late night cable this is a regular occurrence. I have never heard it on the radio though.
 
h0tp0ck3t said:
One time when I was a kid we had a crazy thunder storm and the EBS came on about a tornado warning and to seek shelter in your basements and shit (live in NJ so not something that I ever expected to happen) My mom was at work and I remember being scared shitless she was gonna die
Click to expand...

I grew up in Jersey and would hear these all the time. Holy shit, it would scare the shit out of me. Glad I'm not the only one.
Is it the sounds? Is it the fear that something bad's gonna happen? I don't know, but it's frightening.
 
Had a bad fever two years ago. I'll never forget when, late at night, one of these played and I freaked the fuck out. Hobbled downstairs all sweaty, trying to pack some important things only to realize half way through what I was doing.
 
I still catch it every now and then, I think they do it every first Wednesday of the month or something like that. Now though it's just a chime and a soft female voice as opposed to the fear inducing alarm buzzer and static muffled voice I heard growing up in the '80s.
 
Work in radio. We test on the first week of every month. The day and time is always different. It's market-wide and may be state-wide as well.

Tornado sirens are tested on the first Wednesday of every month.
 
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