Along with its capability of providing a national message to the entire public simultaneously, the EAS structure provides authorized state and local personnel with a quick method to distribute important local emergency information. A state emergency manager may use the system to send out a public warning by broadcasting that warning from one or more major radio stations in a particular state. EAS equipment in other radio and television stations, as well as cable systems in that state, can automatically monitor and rebroadcast that message.

30+ radio stations are designated as National Primary Stations in the Primary Entry Point (PEP) System to distribute Presidential messages to other broadcast stations and cable systems. The Emergency Action Notification is the notice to broadcasters that the President of the United States or his designee will deliver a message over the EAS via the PEP system. "You {AM and FM broadcasters} will hear the following Emergency Action Notification Message from the EAS decoder. This is an Emergency Action Notification requested by the White House. All broadcast stations will follow activation procedures in the EAS Operating Handbook for a national level emergency. The President of the United States or his representative will shortly deliver a message over the Emergency Alert System."

Because the header lacks error detection codes it is repeated three times for redundancy. EAS decoders compare the received headers against one another, looking for an exact match between any two, eliminating most errors which can cause an activation to fail. The decoder then decides whether to ignore the message or whether to relay it on the air based on whether the message applies to the local area served by the station (which is pre-programmed into the decoder).