FEMA, in coordination with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will conduct the first nationwide Emergency Alert System (EAS) Test on November 9, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

The alert notice I got at work said something to the effect of this being different than the EBS tests we are used to, and to not panic. I gather this will show up on about every medium possible, all TV channels, all radio stations, etc. Therefore, they ARE expecting people to think it is a real alert and get excited, so...

For a full-on acronym-laden description of the event, check out http://www.fema.gov/emergency/ipaws/eas_info.shtm

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.