A Wireless Emergency Alert arrives as a loud tone, a distinctive vibration, and a block of text. For a child who cannot read that text quickly, an adult who cannot hear the tone, or anyone whose screen is face down in a bag, the alert conveys that something is wrong without conveying what to do about it. The Federal Communications Commission is now asking whether to change that, and it is taking public comment until August 31.

The proposal was published in the Federal Register this morning at 91 FR 48320. It is a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, adopted at the Commission's June 25 open meeting and filed under PS Docket Nos. 15-91, 15-94, and 25-224. Comments are due August 31, 2026, and reply comments are due September 29, 2026.

The Two Proposals on the Table

The first is visual. The Commission is asking whether to require both the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts to display "standardized symbology that identifies the threat type," meaning a recognizable icon for a tornado, a flood, a chemical release, or an abduction alert, shown alongside the words.

The reason the Commission gives names disability directly. Symbols "could potentially improve comprehension for people with disabilities and people with limited English reading proficiency, hasten public reactions to alerts, and reduce milling," the notice says, using the emergency management term for the delay while people try to figure out whether a warning is real. It cites work by Notify NYC and Cornell Tech finding that incident-specific symbols doubled participant comprehension.

The second proposal is audible. The U.S. Geological Survey asked the Commission to require that a WEA earthquake alert trigger a spoken announcement of the message using text-to-speech, rather than the current attention tone that signals urgency without content. Earthquake alerts are a strong candidate because the text never changes: "Earthquake! Expect shaking. Drop, Cover, Hold On. Protect yourself now." USGS argues text-to-speech "provides critical information to people with access and functional needs," and the Commission asks whether to extend the requirement to the standard templates it has already built for the most common emergencies.

The Question the FCC Raised About Its Own Idea

The notice does something a proposal does not have to do, which is publish the evidence against itself. Citing the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for Wireless Inclusive Technologies, the FCC reports that among sixteen participants "who were Deaf and primarily used ASL for communication," the presence of the candidate symbol set did not improve understanding of either the event or the recommended protective action. The symbol set in question is the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS Foundation library, which is free and FEMA-supported, and is the leading option under consideration.

Then the Commission asks directly: "Is this representative of what we should expect for the effect on the public generally?" and invites anyone with relevant experience or research to put it on the record. A study of sixteen people is a thin basis for a national rule in either direction, which is the practical reason a family that uses ASL has something the record does not currently have.

On the audio side, the notice asks how text-to-speech should interact with devices "connected to screen readers or other accessibility tools," whether other groups would benefit "such as people with limited literacy skills," and whether carriers could deliver spoken alerts in Spanish and other languages.

What the Commission Decided Not to Do

A companion order adopted at the same meeting and published today gives some sense of where accessibility sits in this proceeding. The New York City Emergency Management Department had asked the FCC to rewrite one of its three stated goals for the nation's alerting systems to read that they "should be available in a wide array of languages, able to be displayed on various devices, and include considerations for members of the public with various accessibility needs."

The Commission declined to adopt it, concluding that its existing three goals "already encompass these important public safety-, resiliency-, and accessibility-focused concerns."

The National Federation of the Blind has pressed a related point earlier in the same proceeding, telling the Commission it was disappointed by the lack of discussion of how blind and deafblind people are expected to receive alerts at all, and arguing that a connected Braille display is the most effective route for someone who can neither see the screen nor hear the evacuation instructions.

How to Comment, and What Helps

Comments go through the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System at apps.fcc.gov/ecfs, filed under docket 15-91. There is no minimum length and no legal formatting requirement. A parent describing what happened the last time an alert reached their household, and what would have made the difference, is a valid filing and becomes part of the record the Commission has to address.

Three things the record is short on right now: whether symbols help or distract a specific reader, whether a spoken alert would reach someone before a text alert does, and what happens when an alert arrives for a person who processes sudden loud sounds as a threat in itself.

The FCC also publishes its own materials in braille, large print, electronic, and audio formats on request through fcc504@fcc.gov or 202-418-0530. The settings that control which emergency alerts a phone receives already sit in the notifications menu on both major mobile platforms, and they can be checked today rather than after the rulemaking closes. Families building emergency response skills with a child can practice against a real alert tone before the next one arrives unannounced.