Your Phone Will Buzz Wednesday In NY: Here’s Why

NEW YORK — Don’t freak out Wednesday when your cellphone, TV or radio blares the jarring tone of an emergency alert at 2:20 p.m. EDT.

It’s a planned test of the nation’s high-level “presidential” emergency alert system that would be activated in a nationwide emergency. According to rules in a 2006 law, such alerts can only be sent for national emergencies, or if the public were in peril, and cannot be used for any personal message from a president.

Don’t believe conspiracy theories that have been floated around the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s routine test of emergency broadcast systems.

FEMA has been busy knocking down disproven claims that the test is a ruse, a way for the government to activate graphene oxide and nanoparticles into people’s bodies. If that sounds familiar, it’s along the same line as the long-debunked conspiracy theories about the contents of the COVID-19 vaccine.

There are no known health threats associated with the signal, a FEMA spokesperson told The Associated Press.

The type of sound and volume of the alert will be similar to that of Amber Alerts for missing children or National Weather Service warnings on weather disasters. Cellphone users can opt out of either of those warnings, but cannot opt out of presidential alerts, which are issued at the direction of the White House and activated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.