This bloody emergency alert

[Random789]

It's going to be like when they test the fire alarm at work, isn't it?
You get more and more tense waiting for it, then three minutes before it is due to go off you forget all about it. Then it does go off and you scream like a lunatic and jump so hard that you dislocate something in your neck.

I'd rather just get fried in a nuclear attack and avoid all the stress.

3 pm on Sunday.

If anything of note does happen at that point we'll all miss it because we'll all be fiddling with our phones.

You could do a massive bank heist or something.

We arrived in Florida 2 weeks ago and hadn’t been out of the airport more than 1 hour when the alert went off on all our phones - it was about a missing child but it was so loud and alarming we nearly crashed the car we had newly hired and never driven in the us before. Thought we had broken some major road rule or something had gone wrong with the car. Horrible noise

It's been all over the news for weeks.

But how would you know what's on the news unless you have an alert set up??! This is why we need alerts!

Who even cares about this? Why turn your phone off?
It's not a big deal?

Govn said there would be other forms of warning for those with only landlines.
Does anyone know what they are

He's going to personally come to your house and communicate the alert to you with semaphore flags and a wig.

Ooo
ill tell the neighbours to put the kettle on

Apparently even areas with no signal will get the alert.

Gove is going to be busy. He'll be speeding round all of those no signal areas like a cocaine fuelled cabinet minister being interviewed on breakfast TV.

We arrived in Florida 2 weeks ago and hadn’t been out of the airport more than 1 hour when the alert went off on all our phones - it was about a missing child but it was so loud and alarming we nearly crashed the car we had newly hired and never driven in the us before. Thought we had broken some major road rule or something had gone wrong with the car. Horrible noise

How terrible this happened due to a missing child. Personally, I think if a child has gone missing/abducted we all need to be alarmed and alert if it’s a loud noise that does that, okay.

We have had it here for some time. Used frequently to get people to evacuate with floods and bushfires and also for vulnerable people such as children, demented elderly who wander off and are at risk etc.

I'm sure there will be lots of affair burner phones uncovered. Who will be the first to post about this on here? I'm still not sure of the purpose. If there's a nuclear attack or something what do you do? Your phone alerts you and what? Do you know what to pack and where to run? It's not like I own a stocked bunker to run to.

Exactly. You won't even be able to ring 999 because you'll be having to turn your alert off. And Putin will WIN

Genuine question and I do not mean to offend - those that are worried they will panic, what do you do if a strangers phone rings next to you? Or if your landline rang back in the day? Or if you’re in an office or doctors and their phone rings? Or if you’re waiting for a phone call and have turned your phone off silent? Does this affect your work?

Just to reiterate, genuinely do not want to cause offense, just want to try to understand better as I currently can’t understand how it is different to a phone ringing or text alert under any other circumstance for so many people.

I don't get all this drama. Is it a mumsnet thing? I don't know anyone in RL who has a problem with this. Is this the same as not answering your door, or hating going into the office. Are these all the same introverted, socially awkward, anxious people??

Agree with this.

It's during the middle of my brother's wedding ceremony!!!

Settings
Notifications
Scroll to the bottom
Turn them off

For Android...settings - notifications - advanced settings - wireless emergency alerts...then toggle off.

For those of you who can't understand why anyone would want to switch this off, where have you been for the last 3 years.

Also big fires that release dangerous levels of toxins, gas leaks, severe weather, plus releases from nuclear or chemical plants, where arrangements are already in place to protect local people who will be told to shelter, possibly prepare to evacuate and to either tune into local radio or, if it ever gets fully set up, use the app that they should have already set up, to keep updated.

I also can't believe the way people are reacting to this. Emergency planning is a whole industry that constantly practices for major scenarios that hopefully will never happen and uses the resources and knowledge available to deal with less serious events that do happen.

The vast majority of the population carry a smartphone with them, often 24/7, so we have a very valuable resource that can be used to send people information to inform and hopefully protect themselves and others from threats. It can be used nationally or targeted using cell towers.

People need to stop losing their minds over this and appreciate that the UK is just catching up with many other countries in setting this up.

We probably need more regular tests so people get used to them, like they should be with regular fire drills at work, school etc.

I dont understand why people are being so dramatic about this. Disabling it seems rather silly to me (except for those in DV situations of course). It really isn't a big deal.

Thank you:)

3PM is my nap time with the kids and I really don’t want that interrupted. Soz not soz!

I don't get the "panic", although it's not real panic, but fine the panic. It's 10 seconds, it's been announced.

So for all the panickers who seemed scared of life, if, say, a factory downwind was on fire and possibly toxic gas/smoke was heading your way, hot summer day, wouldn't you want a notification that it might be prudent to close your windows for a while? Or would it better to breathe in toxic air? Or bring your washing in in case it gets covered in chemicals. Or is it safer to not know and wear toxic clothes?

If you are out and phones all around alarmed, would you panic more at that point because you didn't know what the alert was for or would you be calmer living in ignorant bliss?
Would you then have to ask someone what the alert was about? Or is that too panic inducing as well? Would you then panic you didn't know and have to look online? What if you couldn't find it because it was very local would that create more panic?

Are our COVID vaccines being "turned on"? Will this make our kids hang damp towels up (oh please yes for the love of god)? Can we programme the ones who had half dose vaccines (i.e. the children) to do this? Must be able to.

But for the panickers, the terrified of lifers, isn't it better to have, and get used to an alert in a safe space? Predicted, announced? This system will get used for actual real stuff. This system might get hacked and you might get "you are going to get nuked now". What are you going to do then? Lose your mind? Or act like a rational adult?

I honestly can't see what there is to be worried about. Surely, if ever needed for real, information about potential hazards to keep you all lovely and safe is a good thing, not something to panic about.

Or am I missing something here?

It is definitely a MN thing. Meanwhile life just goes on elsewhere. (Says someone who is socially awkward and has a reasonable degree of anxiety going on.)