Nearly jumped out my skin a few minutes ago when sirens started blaring. The emergency alert system just triggered, with this generic message about wildfires.
Not any actual impending ones about to burn my house down. Just the general possibility. Because of a heatwave nobody has apparently noticed.
Thought the bomb was about to drop for a second. Has nobody in our government heard the story about the boy who cried wolf?
Sorry if this is venting but this rather caught me by surprise.
I agree but I also don’t think this was anywhere close to an appropriate use of the alert system. The minimum level of danger that this should be used for is “police car chase in area”. The only exception should be a test of the system, and they should announce that at least 48 hours before they do the test, preferably weeks before they do the test.
I think some people are right in maybe implementing a lower level system. I have heard someone say it’s possible to send an alert without a interrupting siren, and as just a notification. An SMS is a possibility, but is quite expensive.
I remember back in the days before the alert system was well known knowledge, a few years ago. I and my family just received random messages saying “Operator test #1” and “Operator Test #2” without any form of warning, people likely weren’t even aware that their phone could even do that (I was because I am a bit of a nerd, lol)