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Meade County to join regional wireless emergency alert test March 26
Summary
County staff told commissioners Meade County will participate in a regional wireless emergency alert test at 1:30 p.m. Mountain Time on March 26 and will push instructions to residents on how to enable local alerts on phones.
Meade County will take part in a regional test of wireless emergency alerts at 1:30 p.m. Mountain Time on Wednesday, March 26, county staff told the Meade County Commission. The county will coordinate the test with Pennington, Custer and Fall River counties.
County staff said the test will include two layers: local wireless emergency alerts that must be enabled on individual smartphones, and broader Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages driven by the National Weather Service that will appear on television and weather radios. "Amber alerts are by default on Androids and iPhones. They are enabled by default and built into the phone," the staff member said, adding that local alerting tests require phone users to enable the setting manually.
The county will post instructions on how to enable local alerts and use social media and county web pages to notify residents before the test. Pennington County is leading the technical rollout and will publicize the test; county staff said Pennington will present information on local news in the days leading up to the test. Staff also said last year's regional test showed some residents did not receive the alert because they had not enabled it on their phones.
The test will include the National Weather Service-driven EAS and weather-radio messages that occur simultaneously with wireless alerts. County staff said they will publish Meade County's specific weather-radio code and share step‑by‑step instructions for enabling phone alerts on the county website and Facebook pages in the coming weeks.
Commissioners and staff said they will notify county offices, local media contacts and school officials ahead of the test so residents and institutions are not surprised by the messages.
