Atlanta FOX owned station WAGA is reporting AT&T U-Verse subscribers in Northern Georgia, Detroit, Mich. and Austin, Texas have reported seeing an emergency alert that can only be activated by the White House.
The message read in part, “We interrupt our programming at the request of the White House. This is the Emergency Alert System. All normal programming has been discontinued during this emergency.” The viewers then had their channels changed to the local NBC affiliate where the graphic below popped up on screen.
>UPDATE: AT&T issued a statement saying, “Earlier today U-verse TV customers may have received an Emergency Alert notification. We have confirmed that there is no emergency at this time and we are investigating why this occurred. We apologize for any inconvenience. As soon as more information becomes available, I will share with our local media immediately”
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According to WAGA, “Engineers with FOX 5 say the alert can only be activated by the President in times of emergency.”
WAGA said engineers from U-Verse told them the message showed up even though there are no know emergency alerts that would have triggered it. Tipsters tell us the message appeared due to a U-Verse error.