The Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) is an alerting network designed to disseminate emergency alerts from the President of the United States, the National Weather Service (NWS), Emergency Operations Centers, and Amber Alerts.
Presidential: issued by the United States government; used to notify recipients of any national communication from the President; highest priority of the three alert types and cannot be suppressed.
Imminent Threats: issued by local, state, and federal officials or government agencies; used to provide notification of emergencies where life or property is at risk. Imminent Threats are categorized as Extreme or Severe.
AMBER: issued by a federal official; used to notify the community of missing, injured, lost, endangered or abducted children
This service is only available on select devices. Special software and hardware are necessary to support Wireless Emergency Alert capabilities. Unfortunately, these changes cannot be retrofitted to older model devices.
Yes, you will receive alerts; however, the alerts are for your current location. Wireless emergency alerts are enabled throughout Cricket’s coverage area and will be broadcasted to the affected areas. You may receive WEA alerts when roaming on another carrier's network that supports the Wireless Emergency Alerts within the 50 states; however, we cannot guarantee service on another carrier's network.
No. Unlike programs that are based on customer selected zip codes, area codes, or other designated filters, Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) are broadcasted to all enabled devices within an affected area.
Though WEA alerts look similar to text or picture messages, they are broadcast messages that are not delivered via Short Message System (SMS) or Multi Media System (MMS) and are therefore not blocked.
In some cases, factors outside of our control, such as phones not being powered on, local terrain or technical difficulties could prevent the delivery of WEA. Delivery of WEA is not guaranteed and may not be received in weak signal areas.
You should contact the alert sender with any questions about a specific alert. Cricket is not responsible for the content of any WEA alert and has no information beyond what is included in the message. The alerts originate from local, state or federal agencies.
Wireless Emergency Alert capable (WEA) phones should receive an alert only once; however, similar messages may be issued within the alert period or your phone may receive a duplicate alert if you are roaming on another carrier's network.
Yes. You may receive AMBER alerts from both the NCMEC and Wireless Emergency Alerts(WEA) if you have elected to participate in the NCMEC Wireless AMBER Alerts and you are within a WEA affected area. The AMBER Alerts broadcasted through the WEA system are geographically targeted. If you have signed up for NCMEC Wireless AMBER Alerts, they are based on the zip codes you designated.
