Do Wireless Emergency Alerts Really Reach the Public? Inside the RAND Study on WEA Coverage, Opt-Outs, and Alert Fatigue

Do Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) actually reach the people they are intended to warn? And what happens after the alert hits a phone? In this in-depth episode, emergency management practitioners, researchers, and alerting authorities come together to break down a landmark RAND Corporation study examining the real-world performance of the Wireless Emergency Alert system following the October 4, 2023 nationwide test.

Featuring insights from Rachel Steratore and Andy Parker of RAND, alongside hosts Jeannette Sutton and Eddie Bertola, this conversation dives into the often-overlooked “last mile” of public alerting—what happens between the cell tower and the person holding the phone. Unlike traditional text messages, WEA uses one-way broadcast technology, meaning there is no return signal to confirm whether an alert was received, noticed, or acted upon. That design choice improves speed and bandwidth efficiency, but it also creates a major data gap for emergency managers.

To address this gap, RAND conducted one of the largest public alerting surveys ever fielded in the United States—over 80,000 respondents nationwide, collected within hours of the live national test. The study reveals that approximately 91% of adults with working cell phones received the alert, demonstrating extraordinary reach. But it also surfaces critical disparities related to geography, device type, age, carrier differences, and opt-out behavior.

Key topics explored in this episode include:

• Why WEA performance cannot be measured through system logs alone
• Differences between broadcast alerts and SMS messaging
• Rural vs. urban receipt rates and why they matter
• Why Texas shows significantly higher WEA opt-out rates
• How phone design (Apple vs. Android) influences alert engagement
• The role of alert fatigue, relevance, trust, and timing
• Why a third of adults report never having heard of WEA before
• The policy and training implications for alerting authorities

The conversation also explores future research questions, including how to empirically measure over-alerting, warning fatigue, and public trust—and how emergency managers might adopt feedback mechanisms similar to citizen science models used in weather and earthquake monitoring.

If you are an alert originator, emergency manager, public safety official, researcher, or policymaker, this episode provides research-backed insights that can directly inform alerting strategies, public education efforts, and system design decisions.

🔗 Learn more about the RAND study and related research at: https://www.rand.org

🔗 This episode is proudly sponsored by HQE Systems: https://www.hqesystems.com