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Emergency Broadcast Alert Service (French Trafalgar, British Waterloo)

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Established in 1962 after the former CONELRAD system was deemed of no further use due to new ballistic missiles, the United States government under President Curtis LeMay announced in late 1961 after the Scottish-Quebec Missile Crisis showed some of the failings of the system, especially when jittery Department of Defense radar operators nearly assumed almost everything on their radar's were incoming bombers or missiles. The new system was also supposed to be able to quickly warn the public of other emergencies, including of floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters, as well as other non-war, non-nuclear events that were still serious enough to require a warning, but CONELRAD had not been designed for.

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Established in 1962 after the former CONELRAD system was deemed of no further use due to new ballistic missiles, the United States government under President Curtis LeMay announced in late 1961 after the Scottish-Quebec Missile Crisis showed some of the failings of the system, especially when jittery Department of Defense radar operators nearly assumed almost everything on their radar's were incoming bombers or missiles. The new system was also supposed to be able to quickly warn the public of other emergencies, including of floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters, as well as other non-war, non-nuclear events that were still serious enough to require a warning, but CONELRAD had not been designed for. By early 1962, the basis for the Emergency Broadcast Alert System was in place. Although the old "CONELRAD Test" was still the best way to alert other stations of potential emergencies, a new system was developed in 1969 when the threat of bombers dropping nuclear bombs was considered insignificant when ICBM's and other missiles could already home in on coordinates and not on radio or TV stations. This new test is detailed below. By 1989, new computer systems had been developed which eliminated the need to even have a human broadcast these messages and allowed an almost entirely automated process. Incorporating the new "Disaster Charlie" automated voice into the EBAS took two years, but now the Department of Defense, the Department of Communication, the United States Meteorological Service, local state Civil Defense Boards and even the towns and cities themselves were able to issue EBAS warnings with a standardized, calm voice. Fifty six radio, TV, cable and satellite radio stations across the United States and the Confederate States are the "Principal Alert Station" (PAS), and usually have access to the most powerful transmitter for their area. They also have back up generators and much of their equipment had been specially protected from an electromagnetic pulse to allow them to continue broadcasting. These would be the first stations to go on air in the event of an emergency, and the last to cease emergency broadcasting. The most serious test for the EBAS took place during the Crisis of 1991, when the threat of nuclear war seemed so close. In several areas, the Civil Defense boards and many cities actually did activate the EBAS warning to evacuate major population centres, but as the "Disaster Charlie" was still relatively new, many of the messages failed to get through to the designated radio and television stations, or instead resulting in white noise and most notably in Kansas City and Indianapolis when Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up played instead of the warning, launching the future internet meme. The crisis was averted, but a major overhaul of EBAS was needed. New equipment provided by the Department of Communication was installed, and a streamlining of the process was put in place. In 1995, as it was becoming clear that TV and radio was not as important as it was before, it was decided to allow for new technologies to be implemented. The next year saw the new "Electronic Mailing EBAS" being created, with all those interested to sign up. However, due to lack of interest mostly due to the requirement that people have to sign up to receive the alert, along with technical issues such as the alerts being classified as junk mail or lost amongst a person's other email, the Electronic Mailing EBAS was discontinued in 2003. In the "Public Safety Warning Act" of 2005, the new medium of text messaging on cell phones was brought up, and all devices after 2008 had to have a special receiver to pick up EBAS warnings of the area that the phone is located in, whether the person uses text messages or not. The new text message system was tested almost immediately when Tornado Ally suffered the worst season for tornado's in decades in 2008, and the service was credited with saving countless lives despite a few bugs. All modern cell phones and smart phones sold in the US has the "EBAS Chip," and it's a felony to remove the chip then sell the phone, but not for the owner of the phone to remove it themselves, but it has led to issues where the phones were unusable after the EBAS Chip was removed due to being hardwired in the system. EBAS is currently a multi-department undertaking. Like its predecessor CONELRAD, the EBAS is under the direct control of the Department of Communications, but the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the Federal Office of Civil Defense, and the United States Meteorological Service all have authority to activate the system. It's been considered unwieldy to have so many individual branches focusing on one system, but efforts to streamline the service have not been considered important over the years. Over the years the EBAS has undergone overhauls and standardization, along with constantly updating equipment as old equipment was replaced. The original CONELRAD Notification List and the Tiered Warning System had been retired in the late 1960s, and with specially designed electronic equipment, all radio, TV and cable stations have direct access to the EBAS system. But in one leftover from the CONELRAD system, the standardized national tests on TV and radio were still conducted at 7:00 PM on each Friday of the month and in each time zone to show people what to expect if the EBAS was activated. All channels were required to run this minute long test, and those that failed to do so would be fined and, in the case of multiple failures, would actually have their license revoked. Most of the messages were no longer pre-recorded, as the sheer number of potential outcomes would make pre-recording them all time consuming, as well as the possibility of accidentally relaying the wrong message which could cause panic, as happened at least 28 times between 1972 and 1992. Due to changes in technology, after 2004, the weekly test was never publicly broadcast on the air, as it was simply used to confirm that communications with the Department of Communications and the individual stations had not been broken. A Monthly Test of the EBAS, which occurs on the Second Tuesday of every month, is broadcast on air. An Annual Drill, usually held on the second Tuesday of October, is held around the US, in conjunction with "Civil Defense Week." This is reminiscent of the CONELRAD annual drills done from 1956 until 1962, but it was only restarted in 1993 after the Crisis of 1991.