AMBER Advocate › Topics › Public Awareness & Education › FEMA Nationwide EAS/WEA Test › Reply To: FEMA Nationwide EAS/WEA Test
Rachel,
It’s a great idea to get the media and PIO involved. Any success we have had in Arizona with the media has been the result of our PIO unit working with them. We did test Silver Alerts on WEA in conjunction with the media and public. We set up a press conference for the WEA and the media put out the information a week prior to the test. The public who opted into receiving the test alerts were also asked to fill out a survey about the WEA. Ultimately the feedback from the public was they didn’t want a WEA for every Silver Alert even if the WEA’s were by county. We ended up only utilizing WEA’s for Amber and Blue alerts. The Silver Alerts are sent by EAS to the media as an administrative message. Even with only Blue and Amber alerts going out through WEA we still get complaints from the public when they go live.