On Tuesday, the region was under a tornado watch. Some residents in The Era’s Cameron-Elk-McKean-Potter-county region received an alert on their cell phones warning them of the potential for twisters. Some didn’t — and wondered why.
The alerts — Wireless Emergency Alerts — are a companion to the Emergency Alert System (EAS), said Andrew Johnson, director of the McKean County Department of Emergency Services.
On Wednesday, he explained the EAS system is jointly coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Weather Service.
“Alerts for a tornado warning would be sent out by the National Weather Service,” said Johnson. “I know that they did this back in the spring when we had the tornado warning. Yesterday, the EAS message was not sent out to Verizon customers for the tornado warning.”
He described how the alert system normally works.
“Verizon sends EAS messages through the WEA to users in McKean County when there is an EAS activation. This has happened in the past due to weather events, and many people would remember last year when McKean County EMA requested an EAS activation for a chlorine leak in Port Allegany.”
Johnson has contacted Verizon about Tuesday’s issue and is awaiting more information.
“This could be due to a number of different reasons,” he said. “I have been looking into this and have an open trouble ticket with Verizon, but have not found any definitive answers yet and I would not want to speculate why the EAS messages were not sent out.”
Customers do not sign up, and alerts are free, according to the FCC.
The FCC outlined the three types of alerts sent this way: alerts issued by the president, alerts regarding imminent threats to safety or life and Amber Alerts. They appear like text messages.
The alerts are targeted to specific users.
The FCC website states, “Participating wireless providers are generally required to send the alerts to a geographic area no larger than the county or counties affected by the emergency situation. In some cases, however, participating carriers may be able to target alerts to smaller areas.”
Alerts are sent out based on the current location of the cell user, according to the FCC. Residents who travel out of the area won’t receive alerts, while out-of towners who come to the area to visit will receive them.
Also, only some cell customers have phones that are capable of receiving alerts.
That is true of Verizon.
The Verizon Wireless website states, “Verizon Wireless has chosen to offer wireless emergency alerts within portions of its service area as defined by the terms and conditions of its service agreement, on wireless emergency alert capable devices.”
Verizon customers can check the website to find out if their device is capable of receiving alerts.
“Most WEA alerts will be re-broadcast several times to reach the maximum number of devices in the targeted area. Once a device has received an alert, it won’t accept duplicate or identical alerts,” the Verizon Wireless website notes.
