Government alert?!?!

If I were you I'd learn what sarcasm means.

On the way to the football match. All the people on the main road walking up went off at the same time was hilarious. Wveryone pulled their phone out as if to say what is that 😳

Common sense is something that is sadly lacking in many members of the great British public. Just ask anyone who works is retail or hospitality.

Made me jump and scared my elderly cat.

Apparently prison governors are happy. Alerted them to all the hidden phones..

Anyone who was terrified or traumatised by it needs to seek help

It wasn't that loud it wasn't that intrusive it just bleeped

I get people with a second phone may have worried if they have one due to DV and safety (however in my role on social care I have never encountered someone having a 2nd phone for safety... Mainly for dodgy reasons) but it was not that shocking

One woman I know hadna huge Facebook rant stating her loud obnoxious children were too traumatised for bed.

It really wasn't that bad

This really. The more trivial "non urgent" things they are used for, the more people will have a tendency to ignore them. Or turn them off, which completely defeats the purpose.

I was annoyed. I was driving and the car has been acting up. I thought it was something major like a gearbox or engine failure and was looking frantically at the dashboard to try and figure out what had happened.

I think the government needs to save it for real emergencies. For other less serious stuff then there should be an alternate way of notifying people, maybe just a standard text message with a special beep, rather than the full on sirens.

Hopefully when it goes off next time I will have remembered what it sounds like.

The burning (pun intended) question is: next time our phones buzz frantically, will people reach for them wondering how they are about to die, or will they sigh and think “whatever”?

Stupid twats near me set off fireworks last night and caused a fire next to a recycling centre 🤦🏽‍♀️

Made me jump but it was no worse than if I had set an alarm. I definitely wasn't terrified nor did I nearly die.

Love him or hate him, Burnham is correct in that Britain is a tinderbox right now, and people are losing everything, homes, possessions, hopefully not lives. Locally, on Facebook, there are photos of people still having BBQs in the dunes. In a nearby village, a small garden fire got out of hand an a garage, fences and neighbouring gardens were destroyed. Not everyone is thst stupid but you can't tell the morons from the sensible, so it had to just go out to all. I won't be turning it off, it didn't traumatise me and the next one might be even more important.

It's not like you miss anything if it's off, there are immediate news alerts and umpteen threads on MN and other places about it. Just means you don't have that racket blaring out

Same! Switched mine off years ago. Didn’t get anything. It’s common sense not to start fires outside when it’s hot and hasn’t rained in weeks.

Yep, this is exactly what these alerts are for. Those who are poo -pooing it are demonstrating how dim & selfish they are.

I think it was a good thing.Something like 37 wildfires are currently burning and we are currently cut off from Southampton as the A31 is still alight /not safe a week later ! A whole row of homes burning and a stray ember catches off we go like a tinderbox!

Thank you i wasn’t aware of that. Makes sense aa fore crews are inundated with fires. Bless them and everyone affected

I thought that, maybe, Putin had nuked Whitehall but it was only about wildfires.

No idea what they that poster does but in many industries (particularly transport) experience and loss of life has shown that if your alerting system doesn't discriminate clearly and immediately between problems that really need your attention now (e.g. wildfire 500 metres unwind of you) and problems of a less urgent nature ("don't light BBQs anywhere in the UK ) you are setting the system up for failure when it is really needed.

Absolutely ridiculous isn’t it. The fire service will have incredibly robust disaster recovery and major incident protocols. They will practice these over and over again
Petsonally I’m all for them deciding to
assess the level of threat relating to wildfires

it doesn’t mean Andy burnham is trying to ruin my evening

Are you in charge of fire service disaster planning?

Yes. Because befote they wouldn't even ask, let alone get "don't be stupid" type of answers

I live in the Netherlands and the civil defence alarm goes off on the first Monday of every month for the past 15 years, you’ll get used to it.

• I think it did do it's job tbh. You can seee how much of E&W is dry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgv657e1yko And yet there are still people asking online if they can fire up x or y when pics show the x and y is surrounded by crispy brown dry grass.*

So if people are still asking, did the alert actually do it's job?

They send local ones for small areas. You can see they sent flood warnings.
England and Wales makes sense as large portion is in drought, it's holidays and people move around, so someone from area where it's ok goes on holidays where it isn't (most) and wouldn't have the info. It prompted many holiday sites to stop fire being used etc.
I think it did do it's job tbh.
You can seee how much of E&W is dry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgv657e1yko
And yet there are still people asking online if they can fire up x or y when pics show the x and y is surrounded by crispy brown dry grass. 🙄
If they did only local alert, it would still be majority of E&W. So when you look at it, it was actually just local alert....

Hence the reason some countries use a two tier system.

The sort of plea/demand that UKGov sent out on Friday night triggers a low level warning without too many lights and beeps and get used for things like "fire risk nationally, don't light bonfires or use fireworks ..that includes you, Wembley stadium ..🙄.

OTOH if there is a serious problem with immediate risk to life or limb at or around a specific location then the locals, and it's the locals only, get a much harder to ignore alarm with all the sirens and flashing lights.

I've seen that in action once, overseas, for a factory accident where there was a risk of fumes being released into the local enviroment. Everyone within about a 15km radius of the factory got the full works on their mobiles..but outside that area, nothing to phones.

Perhaps there will be one in NI on every Eleventh Night from now on, but I won't hold my breath.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70yp7d917eo