Anyone listening to Jeremy Vine over the alert?

[princesspadam]

Dear god! The amount of hand wringing it’s caused with callers reporting their children screaming, one callers wife hasn’t slept all weekend

whats wrong with everyone? talk about snow flake

this is fairly standard practice in other parts of the globe (have had it several times in the US)

my DCs didn’t even mention it when I got home on Friday night (neither did DP)

Pitiful!

However the issue of hidden phones belonging to women who are victims of DV is a concern.

It does seem odd.
Do people never have fire/evacuation alarms go off at work, school or when out in another public place?
Back in the 80s (when I was a child) it always seemed to be that there was a bomb threat every time I went shopping in Birmingham or Milton Keynes.

If you have a hidden phone, have the common sense to disable the alerts

TBF I was asleep as I wasn’t very well and it absolutely terrified me 😆 I couldn’t work out where it was coming from! And, had it been alerting us that we were under imminent attack, I might of understood the need to send them, but for disposal barbecues? Come on!

I understand the DV issue
none of the callers fell into that bracket

What’s concerning is the ability to get a second phone to keep secrets yet not be able to follow the extremely well publicised information on how to keep it secret.

Really @Blueberryblurs ‘absolutely terrified’???? Come on

On the flip side it might reveal a few cheaters with a special phone for their side piece.

YES - in my asleep state, I shot up out of bed in total confusion thinking it was a fire alarm in the flats I live in going off and never thought for a minute it was coming from my phone. Have some common sense - it was a loud alarm which nobody was expecting without any prior warning.

I shat myself 3 times when on holiday in Canada, as there was emergency alerts for a burst water main so don’t drink the water (twice) and and elderly man had gone missing from the local hospital. It seems to be common practice in other areas

Luckily the terror was over in seconds.

Imagine the legth of time a fire and how consequences would affect you for if they didnt take action.

Oh give it a rest - pedantic much!

Isn't that the point of a alarm?
Loud enough to wake you up if you are asleep.

Seems crazy people can be anxious or terrified over this. It was a complete non-event for the majority.

Yes and ‘terrified me’ that’s the point of this thread.

I think the bigger question is whether we should worry about the fact that society is deemed to be so stupid now that it needs to be told not to use things that might start a fire after a period of prolonged dry weather where everything around us is pretty much kindling.

Or that many of the fires have been started deliberately by people who wouldn't listen to alerts anyway.

Well, yes. But I think the point being made is we probably didn't need to wake people up with an emergency alarm to tell them not to have a BBQ!

But that's the point of alarms.
If it had been the fire alarm then presumably (and understandably) you would also be terrified.
If the fire alarm turned out to be false you'd think "gosh that was scary but phew all is fine".
I assume you read the message and realised it didn't affect you then and there so there was nothing to worry about.
The fact people are STILL using disposable BBQs/having bonfires/fireworks/fire pits in public parks or fields that are straw shows the message was important and perhaps the government should be sending it out every hour until people bloody STOP causing fires.

I don't think you know what pedantic means.

No. Cannot stand the man.

The alarm was sent at 7pm.
Most people wouldn't have been asleep.

And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it. The emergency message system was set up to alert people in the event of an imminent threat to life, and has been used successfully in a targeted way for that. It’s now been used for a general warning, and that misuse will mean more people deactivate the alerts, making them less useful in future if there actually is a threat to life.

I don't know what time you got the message but it was early evening for me. I guess they thought that at that time the majority of people would not be in bed asleep.

Of course. We're talking about/to one specific poster who was asleep though aren't we? Your comment "that's what alarms are for" was in direct response to her.

You literally lost control of your bowels each time?