A test of the emergency alert systems, like this one from 2018 showing a "Presidential Alert" message, is planned Wednesday at 2:20 p.m. ET on televisions, radios and some cellphones across the U.S. Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
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Emergency alert system
Lenh Vuong, a clinical social worker at Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center, checks on a former John Doe patient she recently helped identify. Heidi de Marco/KHN hide caption
Jay McAbee, a bus driver with the Greenville, S.C., school district, waits by his bus in Charleston, S.C., in October of 2016, for word of when to start evacuating the city's residents in advance of Hurricane Matthew. Simply having enough buses to carry pets as well as people can be key to convincing residents they need to leave ahead of a big storm, emergency responders say. Mic Smith/AP hide caption
Safely Evacuating The Elderly In Any Emergency Takes Planning And Practice
People with cellphones will receive a message like this one on Wednesday. FEMA hide caption
This Is Only A Test: Why Your Cellphone Buzzed Wednesday Afternoon
The post-fire entryway of the Anova school, which was located in Santa Rosa's Luther Burbank Center for the Arts. Adam Grossberg/KQED hide caption
The Blue Alert, a new kind of public emergency notification was named after two New York Police Department officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, who were killed in an ambush attack by a man who hours earlier had shot a woman near Baltimore. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption
This emergency alert jolted New Yorkers on Sept. 19 as police sought a suspect in connection with explosions in the New York City metropolitan area. Lacking a photo or a link to one, it raised concerns about racial profiling. AP hide caption
