Washington - The Federal Emergency
Management Agency sent an alert on Wednesday aimed at tens of
millions of mobile phones to test a previously unused
presidential alert system to warn the public in the event of a
national emergency.
The test message was originally scheduled for September but
pushed back to 2:18 p.m. EDT (1818 GMT) on Wednesday with phones
making a loud tone and a special vibration.
The message read:
"THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System.
No action is needed.” A separate alert on televison
and radios was issued at 2:20 p.m. EDT.
Federal officials said Trump was not personally involved in
sending the alert, which would be sent in the event of a pending
missile attack or other national emergency.
US cellphone users
are not able opt out of presidential alerts.
Americans took to Twitter to take a dig at Trump, who is well-known for his late-night tweets.
So basically, everyone is Trump’s twitter follower whether you like it or not #PresidentialAlert pic.twitter.com/1K8KtSZhJx
— Tyler Davis (@tylerdavis7299) October 3, 2018
Gonna respond with just a “K” to really piss him off. #PresidentialAlert pic.twitter.com/1JlzI0jngA
— Mary (@TheRealFakeMary) October 3, 2018
Man he using #PresidentialAlert to order some food pic.twitter.com/9PY0EhyteM
— spooky mau (@mauricio818e) October 3, 2018
have y’all gotten this one yet? #PresidentialAlert pic.twitter.com/ECOnJ7OUXM
— 𝘬𝘦𝘯𝘯 (@kvnnedy) October 3, 2018