![]() Public that we were going to put something in his home TV that was controlled by the government.”īy the 1980s the government had settled into the Emergency Broadcast System, with regular public tests turning its incessant buzz and staccato warning voice into a familiar aspect of the American TV and radio experience. “The technology is there,” one federal official explained anonymously afterwards, “ after, there was no way we were going to tell John Q. When congressional oversight hearings highlighted secret surveillance programs and dirty tricks by the FBI and CIA, the government quietly shelved the entire warning system. But as the Watergate scandal spread, so too did public distrust of the government. In one poll, seven out of 10 Americans said they were excited about the program and willing to invest their own money in a DIDS transmitter. ![]() It began to move ahead with plans for 10 more DIDS stations spread across the country, all of them controlled by centrally located radio transmitters in Ault, Colorado, and Cambridge, Kansas. The government branded the program-which it estimated would save the lives of 27 million Americans by providing immediate warning of a Soviet attack-with PERki, a peppy, friendly puppy mascot emblazoned all over its literature. Within 30 seconds of Washington issuing a warning, every TV in the country could be alerted, saving precious minutes in the race for shelter.Īt the same time the Watergate burglary was unfolding in 1972, the government invested $2 million to build the first dedicated DIDS transmitter outside Washington, for a station dubbed WGU-20, Public Emergency Radio. The DIDS device could be installed in television sets for $10-or retrofitted onto existing TVs for about $30-and would, following a special government signal, turn on the television at any hour and tune it to a special low-frequency channel. Instead, officials through the Johnson and Nixon administrations began to develop what they called the Decision Information Distribution System, a national radio network designed to notify citizens of a Soviet strike. Wednesday’s test of the Wireless Emergency Alert System is only the latest in the country’s odd history of national doomsday alerts. In fact, Wednesday’s test of the Wireless Emergency Alert System-the fourth nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, and the first to use texting-is only the latest in the country’s odd history of national doomsday alerts, plans that over the years have included everything from special radio stations to pink balloons to TV entertainer Arthur Godfrey to, at least for the cable network CNN, the song the band played as the Titanic sank. The agency best known as the public face of the federal government’s response to major natural disasters originally started as-and continues to be-its secret doomsday planner, overseeing the so-called “continuity of government” efforts that would ensure the evacuation of key officials to mountain bunkers and airborne command posts after a catastrophe. The test alert-which has already spawned numerous jokes about President Trump’s Twitter habits-is actually a rare public display of the classified side of FEMA’s daily work. The first nationwide test of the government’s Presidential Alert system will unfold at 2:18 pm ET, when almost every cell phone user in the United States will receive a text message from FEMA saying, “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. ![]() ![]() ![]() Donald Trump plans to text you Wednesday, whether you want him to or not. ![]()
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