It will be the alert heard around the entire country the Emergency Alert System test that will sound off on your phones, TV and radio on Wednesday, Oct. 4 at 1:20 p.m. CST.
"EAS is an emergency alert system which is a federal system locals do have access to but this test tomorrow is going to be a test for the federal system," Midland County Emergency Management Coordinator Justin Brunch said. "So it’ll go out nationwide to everyone who has an iPhone or some kind of smartphone that has notifications enabled, so it’s just a way for the federal government to notify the mass population."
FEMA and the FCC will be conducting this test to make sure they are able to communicate with the public in case an emergency arises.
"Nothing to freak out about we’ve done it for the past several years again its just a test because it does go over AT&T, Verizon all the various cable networks all that stuff so its just making sure those pathways in the digital system are operating properly," Bunch said.
According to FEMA, it will last for 30 minutes, but that doesn't mean your phone will be going off for 30 minutes.
"Should be a couple of seconds just like you would with an amber alert the tones will go off and you’ll get an automated message saying if this is a real emergency. Just an annual test to make sure the system is working properly," Bunch said. "The federal level, they can send it out regionally, they can send it out nationwide, statewide their system is probably a little easier than ours because they don’t have to go through that a third party they just do it directly."