In light of the Texas floods this July 4th, there are many questions about weather alerts. Here is what I found on cell phone alerts that come from the government, the federal government.
What are Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs)?
Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) are short emergency messages from authorized federal, state, local, tribal and territorial public alerting authorities that can be broadcast from cell towers to any WEA‐enabled mobile device in a locally targeted area. Wireless providers primarily use cell broadcast technology for WEA message delivery. WEA is a partnership among FEMA, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and wireless providers to enhance public safety.
www.fema.gov/...
You do not need to install an app on your phone to receive WEAs. You can even put the phone on silent mode and the alert will still be audible.
It would not matter if your locality does not put out alerts, you would still get these alerts. The localities that do alert might go above and beyond with more information and may require you to suscribe or install an app.
The National Weather Service (NWS) is one of the government partners (itself a part of the government) that will send alerts. Below is the NWS site on WEAs.
Wireless Emergency Alerts (360 characters)
www.weather.gov/...
A change was made in 2019 to how flash flood WEAs would be issued by the NWS. Only the most life threatening events would warrant the issuance of a WEA to your cell phone. Bolding mine:
October 2, 2019
www.noaa.gov/…
To better communicate the threat of a flash flood, NOAA’s National Weather Service is moving to a bulleted format for the warnings, with easily readable information, including a description of the flash flood hazard, the source of the information and the hazard impact.
The new impact-based format will allow for more targeted Wireless Emergency Alerts directed at those who need to take immediate action to preserve life during a flash flood event.
In December, after all NWS forecast offices are issuing flash flood warnings in the new format, wireless alerts will only be sent for flash flood warnings where a life-threatening flood event is occurring and urgent action is needed. Warnings with a damage threat tag of either “considerable” or “catastrophic” will trigger a wireless alert. Considerable flood events are significantly life-threatening and may cause substantial damage to property. Catastrophic events are violent flash floods that extraordinarily threaten lives and cause disastrous damage. The new tags will help reduce the number of flash flood warning Wireless Emergency Alerts currently distributed.
I can’t swear by it, but seem to recall that there were other news stories about this at the time. They were getting complaints from the public getting too many emergency alerts.
