A method for supporting emergency cell broadcast (CB) messages on a multi-subscriber identity module (SIM) mobile communication device includes: waking up a first subscription from a sleep mode at a common traffic channel (CTCH) occasion; decoding a CB message header received during the CTCH occasion; determining whether a scheduling message (SM) is present based on the decoded CB message header; and in response to determining that the SM is present, granting resource priority to the first subscription to decode the complete SM.