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.
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I wonder how many people crashed their cars trying to figure out if they were about to be obliterated in a nuclear inferno.
This was supposed to be for emergencies, not PSAs.
“Please don’t start wildfires” isn’t a good reason to set off the modern equivalent of an air raid siren. I hope this isn’t a trend as people will be more likely to disable the system.
An emergency alert like this should only be used if there is an actual danger. Ideally localised which IIRC this system can be, so if the local national park had an out of control wildfire I would be fine with a county wide alert going out about it.
What was extra stupid is that none of the media outlets really reported on the alert all read it out, or anything. So apparently the emergency alert system doesn’t send through an automatic breakthrough into television and radio programming, which surely it should do.
So what they’ve demonstrated is yet again that the system still doesn’t work properly.
Completely agree. I was personally a little annoyed at this usage. There can actually be consequences for some people to have a very sudden, loud, intrusive noise.
If nothing else, how about just the increased risk of car accidents that comes from more people being sleep-deprived after being woken up in the middle of the night by a warning siren?
It was early evening that most went off, although some people got it hours later. Also it seems like it was sent out twice.
Was at an open mic night and occasionally heard some going off hours later.
You’re not supposed to use your phone while driving but the only way to make it stop beeping what’s to pick up the phone and press OK. So either I’m distracted by the noise or distracted by the phone.
If there’s an ICBM incoming then sure I guess I’ll take the risk but if you’re just telling me that it’s hot outside I don’t think that’s a worthwhile trade-off.
This is such a weird use of this system. Months of wildfires and Labours first action is to send a phone alert that amounts to ‘only you can stop wildfires.’
Even better, an hour or two after it was sent a local business set off fireworks. Fucking stupidity everywhere.
They only brought in a ban on disposal BBQs today after dithering about it for ages.
A reluctance to do anything practical but they are very trigger happy in abusing an emergency alert system.
What practical things would you have them do?
Make the fossil fuel industry pay for solar panels.
Lol.
Felt like an underlining of their new policy to
banadjust the guidelines to voluntarily stop the use of disposable BBQs. They are under a lot of pressure to actually do some mitigation since water is running low and crops are failed but apparently this was the actual action, banning BBQs and alerting everyone to that new guideline!!!Only disposable BBQs, which I support because they are shit to cook on.
Well, if that’s what it’s going to be used for then I’ve switched it off. Stupid use of the system.
On android search emergency alerts in your settings.
Thanks, I didn’t realise there was an option to disable it.
You’d think they’d save this klaxon style alert for imminent danger, not “don’t use barbecues”. What the hell.
All mine are swtched off.
They still come through in BC Canada. Doesn’t care about the settings; they all play anyway.
Amber Alerts, Emergency Warnings, Tests, all of them play regardless.
There’s been 6 here, since May this year. 2 of those were between 12am and 1am.
In the UK the option to disable them is to protect people with secret phones (specifically spousal abuse)
At that point, I would just switch it off at night.
It’s my alarm.
This proved they will just use it for announcing their latest damp squib policies so zero point keeping it on, they are only going to abuse it.
Damp squib*
Yeah, I won’t turn it off for a single unnecessary alert but if they keep using it for stuff like this I probably will.
Are they going to give us alerts to drive safely next?
What could go wrong
Well, anyone with a secret phone they’re e.g. hiding from an abusive spouse has had that blown, haven’t they? But at least they now know portable barbecues and fireworks are a Not Very Good Idea when the country is basically a tinderbox. So, there’s that.
There were months of warning about the emergency alert system when it was introduced for exactly that reason, including widely-publicised instructions on how to turn them off.
The guidance has been around for a while now to disable alerts on secret phones. We can’t just not send out alert messages because of this.
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.
Yeah but this alert was just a request to not start forest fires.
However it does seem people still aren’t getting that.
That’s on them🤷
went through the same emotion range. from oh shit it’s going down to “you interrupted me for that?”
Yep, we assumed incoming attack. Then saw it was nothing.
Literal birthplace of the Oxford Comma and they still don’t use it. Smh my head.
The tea time alert will be next.
The dullness of bureaucracy will smooth out even the sharpest of minds.
Yeah this proper shit me up! Is it the first time this system has been used in anger?
Anger?
Not used in a test scenario.
No, they have been used plenty of times for storms, a few times for flooding, and once for a WWII bomb
This is the first time since the test that I’ve received one. I think this might be the first use of the nationwide alert.
I had a second fucking alert a few hours later.
Turns out it was still hot.
“placing lives, homes, businesses and emergency responders at risk”
Priorities…
I am in Northern Ireland, so out of scope of it - yet I heard it come through on BBC Radio 4
