The Day an Emergency Broadcast System Error Spread Nuclear Fear

Remember
that
brief
moment
of
icy
fear
that
went
down
your
spine
every
time
you
heard
the
start
of
an
Emergency
Broadcast
System
test?

Well
for
United
States
audiences
on
Feb.
20,
1971,
it
seemed
as
if
doomsday
had
indeed
arrived,
as
the
alert
played
on
TV
and
radio
stations
across
the
country
that
morning
did

not
start
with
the
typical
reassuring “this
is
a
test…”
disclaimer.

The
system,
originally
known
as
the
Emergency
Action
Notification
System,
was
established
in
1963
to
provide
United
States
presidents
with
a
way
to
quickly
communicate
with
the
American
public
in
the
event
of
war,
threat
of
war,
or
grave
national
crisis.

Listeners
had
grown
used
to
the
system’s
test
broadcasts
occasionally
interrupting
their
favorite
shows,
but
on
that
Saturday
morning
in
1971
they
heard
a
much
more
foreboding
message.

You
can
hear
the
alert
aired
by
Ft.
Wayne
news
radio
station
WOWO
that
day
below: “This
station
has
interrupted
its
regular
program
at
the
request
of
the
United
States
government,
to
participate
in
the
emergency
broadcast
system.”
The
message
went
on
to
explain
that
the
station
would
now
become
the
official
government
news
source
for
their
area,
and
warned
that
other
local
TV
and
radio
stations
would
shut
down
as
a
result
of
the
declared
national
emergency.

Similar
messages
were
broadcast
across
an
unknown
number
of
stations
across
the
country. “The
composure
of
the
broadcast
industry
–
and
the
country
–
was
in
shambles,”
wrote

Variety
(as
reported
by

History.com). “Some
stations
broadcast
the
announcement
and
went
off
the
air
as
required
–
throwing
listeners
into
a
tizzy.
Other
stations
didn’t
pick
up
the
warning
until
after
it
had
been
cancelled.
Some
went
off
the
air
without
having
the
nerve
to
broadcast
the
warning.”

Read
More:

15
Times
TV
or
Radio
Stations
Got
Hijacked

“I
was
absolutely
terrified,”
one
Chicago-based
listener
told
the


New
York
Times
in
a
report
that
appeared
the
next
day. “I
just
knew
that
we
were
at
war
and
that
the
President
would
come
on
and
say
what
had
happened.”
A
Florida
woman
added
her
reaction: “I
didn’t
do
anything.
I
just
sat
there
being
scared.”

Moving
back
to
the
Ft.
Wayne
example,
host
Bob
Sievers
quickly
took
over
WOWO’s
airwaves
to
explain
that
he
and
his
co-workers
did
not
know
the
nature
of
the
emergency
and
to
ask
frantic
listeners,
perhaps
worried
that
the
Vietnam
war
had
taken
a
drastic
turn,
not
to
flood
the
station’s
phone
lines.

“Again,
ladies
and
gentlemen,
we
ask
you
please,
please
do
not
call
us
to
ask
what
is
the
matter,”
he
pleaded. “We
are
endeavoring
to
find
out
ourselves.
We
have
received
this
official
emergency
action
action
notification,
with
the
proper
identification
indicating
a
national
emergency.
We
know
nothing
now,
we
are
watching
our
wires.”

Luckily,
the
cause
of
the
warning
wasn’t
impending
nuclear
war,
just
human
error.
An
employee
of
the
National
Emergency
Warning
Center
included
the
wrong
confirmation
code
word
with
that
day’s
planned
test,
indicating
to
the
stations
that
it
was
a
real
emergency.

“I
can’t
imagine
how
the
hell
I
did
it,”
the
employee
in
question,
W.S.
Eberhard
(who
had
worked
at
the
center
for
15
years)
told
the

Times.
It
took
the
center
40
minutes
to
find
and
send
out
the
correct
code,
indicating
to
the
stations
that
the
alert
was
indeed
meant
to
be
just
a
test.

“And
so…
If
you
think
this
hasn’t
been
something
here
at
the
studio,”
a
relieved
Sievers
told
WOWO
listeners,
after
informing
them
that
the
danger
was
never
real
and
explaining
the
nature
of
the
error.

Others
were
far
less
forgiving. “The
center’s
explanation
is
that ‘human
error’
caused
unauthorized
declaration
of
national
emergency,”
the


Times
reported
on
Feb.
22,
before
asking: “Could
similar ‘human
error’—here
or
in
the
Soviet
Union—send
American
or
Soviet
weapons
into
action?
Those
who
deny
such
a
possibility
must
explain
why
the
safeguards
governing
instant‐response
weapons—which
are
also
subject
to
human
errors—are
more
trustworthy
than
those
which
failed
to
prevent
the
false
emergency
announcement.”

In
response
to
the
Feb.
20,
1971
error
and
the
trouble
it
caused,
the
National
Emergency
Warning
Center
made
major
changes
to
the
way
its
alerts
and
tests
were
sent
including,
as
noted
by
History.com,
the “jarring,
screeching
sounds”
you
hear
during
tests: “Like
the
sounds
of
information
being
transmitted
over
a
modem,
those
tones
transmit
data
to
broadcasters
–
data
that
tells
them
what
kind
of
situation
is
in
progress
and
whether
the
transmission
is
a
test
or
a
false
alarm.”

There
has
not
been
a
national
alert
error
on
this
level
since,
although
a
handful
of

false
local
or
regional
emergency
alerts
have
occurred
since
that
time.
In
1997,
the
system
was
upgraded
and
renamed
the
Emergency
Alert
system,
and
in
2018
the
government
conducted
its
first
test
of
a

national
cell
phone-based “Presidential
Alert”
system.

Hear
WOWO’s
February
20,
1971
Emergency
Broadcast
Alert