At the risk of underreacting and being underly paranoid, it seems to me to be something that’s long overdue. The emergency alert system has only ever been tested at the state and local levels and natural disasters and emergencies don’t always respect state borders. Does anyone have any information on when the decision was made to test the system at the national level? If it was made after Irene and after the east coast earthquake it really makes sense. Irene was a huge storm that caused damage over a wide area, and the earthquake, unlike a lot of earthquakes, was felt over a wide area too, all over the east coast. Anyway, it’s something that makes sense to me; to test the system at national level, no matter when they decided. FEMA, on it’s webpage about the test says the day and the time for the national test were chosen because:
The November 9 date is near the end of hurricane season and before the severe winter weather season. The 2 p.m. Eastern broadcast time will minimize disruption during rush hours, while ensuring that the test can occur during normal business hours across several time zones.
And, @zensky, you guys may have something to worry about with Iran, but what exactly could they do to us right now or in the near future? I believe the longest range missile Iran has is the Ghadr-110 which has a range of about 1800 km, and I don’t think anyone is absolute certain about that one, I don’t think. They could hit Israel with it, but certainly not the U.S.