(a) The EAS may be activated at the State and Local Area levels by EAS Participants at their discretion for day-to-day emergency situations posing a threat to life and property. Examples of natural emergencies which may warrant state EAS activation are: Tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, heavy snows, icing conditions, widespread fires, etc. Man-made emergencies warranting state EAS activation may include: Toxic gas leaks or liquid spills, widespread power failures, industrial explosions, and civil disorders.

(1) DBS providers shall pass through all EAS messages aired on local television broadcast stations carried by DBS providers under the Commission's broadcast signal carriage rules to subscribers receiving those channels.

(2) SDARS licensees and DBS providers may participate in EAS at the state and local level and make their systems capable of receiving and transmitting state and local level EAS messages on all channels. If an SDARS licensee or DBS provider is not capable of receiving and transmitting state and local EAS message on all channels, it must inform its subscribers, on its website and in writing on an annual basis, of which channels are and are not capable of supplying state and local messages.

(b) EAS operations must be conducted as specified in State and Local Area EAS Plans.

(c) Immediately upon receipt of a State or Local Area EAS message that has been formatted in the EAS Protocol or the Common Alerting Protocol, EAS Participants participating in the State or Local Area EAS must do the following:

(1) State Relays (SR) monitor or deliver EAS alerts as required by the State EAS Plan.

(2) Local Primary (LP) entities monitor SPs, SRs, or other sources as set forth in the State EAS Plan.

(3) Participating National (PN) sources monitor LPs or other sources as set forth in the State EAS Plan.

(4) EAS Participants participating in the State or Local Area EAS must discontinue normal programming and follow the procedures in the State and Local Area Plans. Analog and digital television broadcast stations must transmit all EAS announcements visually and aurally as specified in §11.51(a) through (e) and 73.1250(h) of this chapter, as applicable; analog cable systems, digital cable systems, and wireless cable systems must transmit all EAS announcements visually and aurally as specified in §11.51(g) and (h); and DBS providers must transmit all EAS announcements visually and aurally as specified in §11.51(j). EAS Participants providing foreign language programming should transmit all EAS announcements in the same language as the primary language of the EAS Participant.

(5) Upon completion of the State or Local Area EAS transmission procedures, resume normal programming until receipt of the cue from the SR or LP sources in your Local Area. At that time begin transmitting the common emergency message received from the above sources.

(6) Resume normal operations upon conclusion of the message.

(7) The times of the above EAS actions must be entered in the EAS Participants' records as specified in §§11.35(a) and 11.54(a)(3).

(8) Use of the EAS codes or Attention Signal automatically grants rebroadcast authority as specified in §11.54(b).

(d) Immediately upon receipt of a State or Local Area EAS message that has been formatted in the Common Alerting Protocol, EAS Participants must do the following:

(1) EAS Participants participating in the State or Local Area EAS must follow the procedures for processing such messages in the State and Local Area Plans.

(2) Analog and digital television broadcast stations must transmit all EAS announcements visually and aurally as specified in §11.51(a) through (e) and 73.1250(h) of this chapter, as applicable; analog cable systems, digital cable systems, and wireless cable systems must transmit all EAS announcements visually and aurally as specified in §11.51(g) and (h); and DBS providers must transmit all EAS announcements visually and aurally as specified in §11.51(j). EAS Participants providing foreign language programming should transmit all EAS announcements in the same language as the primary language of the EAS Participant.

(3) Resume normal operations upon conclusion of the message.

(4) The times of the above EAS actions must be entered in the EAS Participants' records as specified in §§11.35(a) and 11.54(a)(3).

[59 FR 67092, Dec. 28, 1994, as amended at 63 FR 29666, June 1, 1998; 65 FR 21658, Apr. 24, 2000; 67 FR 18511, Apr. 16, 2002; 70 FR 71037, Nov. 25, 2005; 71 FR 76220, Dec. 20, 2006; 72 FR 62135, Nov. 2, 2007; 77 FR 16706, Mar. 22, 2012; 83 FR 37759, Aug. 2, 2018]