Emergency Alert Test Tomorrow on Some Mobile Phones

On Thursday between 10am and 3pm, the New York City Office of Emergency Management, in partnership with the FEMA, S&T, and the FCC, will conduct a test of the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system. This is a new, free emergency notification service that will allow authorized government officials to send geographically targeted emergency alerts to enabled mobile devices on the AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon wireless networks.

They will be sending the alert to six test phones, but some members of the public may receive a message as well. Some newer mobile devices may be WEA-capable and may receive one or more of the test messages, which will be an audible notification (no matter if you keep your device on vibrate, or have an awesome ringtone) along with a text message that says “Severe Alert” or “Extreme Alert" on your main screen, then info about the test in the text message body.

Due to the limited nature of this test, you probably won't get one, but now you know what it is if you do.

Participating mobile carriers are required by the FCC to begin deploying WEA technology by April 2012, so this isn't something you need to opt into--it will automatically be available on new phones in the future.