Tomorrow, November 9 at 2 PM eastern, FEMA and the FCC will be conducting the first ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System. We’ve read on other sites that the test will also entail shutting down the Internet for 3 minutes – rebooting the system – but didn’t find any mention of that on the government site.
In fact, under the FAQ section, it says:
“The nationwide test will involve broadcast radio and television stations, cable television, satellite radio and television services and wireline video service providers across all states and the territories of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa.
“The test will not involve other communication devices such as the Internet, LAN and mobile telephones. No other communications networks or devices will be impacted by the test, meaning that people will be able to continue use their cell phones, the internet and other communications channels during the test. There will be no disruption of those services.”
So, we’ll see what’s what, right?
As mentioned yesterday in your other post, it’s my ironclad habit to make hardcopies (paper) of anything and everything important. Yes, this takes time. Yes, this takes reams of paper. Yes, this can be a hassle. Yes, this takes up space. BUT….if and when the national and/or global electronic grid shuts down, whether temporarily or permanently, my stuff won’t be on unusable discs or CDs or a defunct, silent computer. It will be in my oak file cabinet and with pencils, pens, and paper, with candlelight, flashlights, lanterns, whatever, my work can continue and won’t be lost. The extra effort is worth it to me. I also hardcopy stuff from other people that is important. I consider all these papers to be as important as our insurances, deeds, wills, medical advanced directives, etc. They are paper and without the paper copies, would be useless. We have many friends up north who have been without power for more than a week now due to the snow blizzard. What if some other catastrophe puts ALL of us out of power for extended periods? I decided long ago to be prudent, and to make the hard copies. I haven’t been sorry. For me, in spite of the extra work involved, it’s worth not worrying about power loss at least in this regard. As to the electronic “blackout test” today, I personally have a hunch there’s more to it than TPTB are telling us. We’ll see, I guess.
Preparing for the zombie (or whatever) apocalypse, I suppose.
I agree with Debra – it’s nerve wracking. I’ll be glad to get past 11/11/11.
What if they do shut down the Internet and when they reboot, a lot of websites and blogs don’t reappear??? That would be awful. I have not saved my blog in a file or printed them. That’s a lot of personal writing I’ve done on mine.
We do daily backups. Back it up, for whatever reason, just do it. You’ve got much longer posts, lots of good stuff on your blog. You don’t want to lose that!
I find everything nerve wracking at this point.
It’s getting much harder to get to the truth these days.
🙁
Boy, isn’t THAT the truth.
Freaky!