So a couple weeks ago I am driving to work and listening (as I often do) to WBUR.  I really like WBUR... it's located at 90.9 on the FM dial in the Boston area, and is a PBS station which carries both NPR programming and some of its own local shows which are quite excellent.

Anyway I'm driving along listening to the show and suddenly I hear a familiar message that we've all heard at one time or another.  "This is a test.  This station is conducting a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.  This is only a test."

What followed was about 15 seconds of dead silence, and then a newscaster came on and (slightly offbeat) began reading a story from the day's news.

I said to myself: "Had this been an actual emergency, you would have been completely fucked.  That's why we have these tests!"

Some 10 minutes later the test was conducted again, and this time it worked.