Presidential Text Alerts Sent Wednesday

SPRINGFIELD, Mo.--Of all the text messages you might get on Wednesday, there will be one  you've never seen before; a text message from President Donald Trump.

It's a brand new presidential alert system to warn of a national crisis like a missile launched toward the United States.

Just like you get Amber Alerts on your phone, you'll hear the same sound when a presidential alert has been sent out. On Wednesday, you will receive a text just testing the system at 1:18 pm.

Presidential Alert: This is a test of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed. 

 This is an alert that every American with a modern cell phone will hear go off at the same exact time Wednesday.

"It's not going to be an everyday thing. This is the first time they are testing this sort of presidential level alert system so hopefully this won't be used. I think that's kind of the the thing just to make sure that if there is a situation, there's a direct way to notify the public," says Branden Surgnier of Springfield-Greene County Office of Emergency Management.

Surgnier  assures you that the president won't be sending text alerts as often as he tweets.

"There will be policies, protocols, or procedures in place that these kind of alerts are only meant to go off at certain times so like I said, any sort of threat to national security, burden, or disaster affecting any American or life in America, there will be an alert system that will go out," says Surgnier. 

"I'm hoping there's not very many of them," says cell phone user, Russell Murray. 

Murray says he'll only take the alerts seriously if they are sparse.

 "It would depend on the volume of them and the resilience of them or how important they are," says Murray. 

Cell phone user, Carroll Bendure, however,  is optimistic about their effectiveness.

 "I'd have no problem with that. It would be nice to know what's going to happen and something like that, that's going to happen then we're prepared for it," says Bendure. 

Even though the text message will say presidential alert, the president himself isn't actually writing or sending the texts. The emergency messages are pre-written and approved by various government agencies such as FEMA and can't be turned off.

 "I  think it's great. I would not mind to hear from the president at all," says cell phone user, Renae Doan. 

 "I think we should all be informed of issues that are happening in this world," says cell phone user, Edna Nelsen. 

Not everyone is on board with the presidential alerts. According to CBS News, three New Yorkers have sued saying it is unconstitutional seizure of electronic devices.