On October 4, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducted a nationwide emergency alert test, after they told citizens that an emergency warning would go off at exactly 1:20 pm CT.
FEMA wanted to test how accurate the National Alert System was with this alert. Since August 3, they have been planning on testing this and the set date was October 4. It was claimed that no matter if phones were on silent or do not disturb, the alert would go through and go off at 1:20 p.m.
Some people were confused as to why it went off early. At 1:18 people’s devices started going off. People were also underwhelmed by this as it has been talked about for months.
“I felt confused when it went on, and so did my teachers and classmates,” junior Kriss Davis said. “Everyone’s phones all went off at different times and some of them didn’t stop.”
Social media was filled with conspiracies and videos about how some bad things happened to people after it went off, some say they turned into zombies and some started to shake uncontrollably. All of these were proven to be fake and were done for views.
With the alarm going off at 1:18 it left a lot of people confused and worried, while some were still a little underwhelmed. The social media coverage added another dimension to the expectations.
“I thought it was overhyped and obnoxious. People made it a bigger deal than it was and the loud noise was annoying and distracting in class,” junior Haley McCarty.
