A Thunder Eagle Alert Eagle 400 has been located in the National Weather Service Baltimore/Washington Forecast Office’s operations area since July, 2005. This office has the responsibility of providing emergency alerts to the nation’s capital region, which includes two major metropolitan areas and a population of over 8 million people.  The AE400 decodes the SAME/emergency alert messages off the air, prints them out in hard copy and displays them on a LED signboard in real time so the forecasters can verify that the correct alert has been transmitted. The unit proved itself during the floods in June 2006, where the AE400 informed the forecasters that the alerts were being reliably issued during the storm. The forecasters coming on shift used the print-out as a pre-shift briefing without bothering busy forecasters. Also, the AE400 print-out was used to verify and complete the NWS official log of alerts for the event. More than 250 alerts were issued in four days and the AE400 performed flawlessly.