Emergency alerts to your phone

[TheFirstOfHerName]

From April, the government will be able to send emergency alerts to our mobile phones.

www.gov.uk/alerts

A siren will go off, even if your phone is on silent. You won't be able to do anything else on your phone until you turn it off. They plan to test this on 23 April.

I understand the reasons why this can be helpful, and in areas where people need to suddenly evacuate due to wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes etc it could save lives.

However, personally I don't want it, and have disabled it on my phone.

1. Of the emergencies I might experience, I'm not sure I'd want to be alerted to any of them via this method. If a flood or storm is imminent, I'll find out through the usual channels. If a nuclear missile is heading my way, having a few minutes' warning will not help.

1. This system is being run / overseen by the UK government, and my trust in them has been somewhat eroded over the past few years.

1. I have an anxiety disorder (reasonably well managed with combination of medication and other methods) and I think the cost to my anxiety levels of having my phone suddenly sirenning at me outweighs the negligible probability of this system saving my life.

If you are the kind of calm, resilient person who could have these alarms going off and it not completely throw you, then great.

Exactly @Buzzinwithbez, I can't wait for it to go off every time there's an accident on the M25!

Please enlighten us then of the natural disasters you have seen in the UK, where an alarm going off on your phone would’ve saved you.

Traffic gridlocks? Ha ha 😂

well just in the last couple of years, alerts about flood and wildfires would have saved a lot of danger, difficulties, property ( especially cars) and a few lives, locally to me.

And the UK had been devastated by tsunami in the past, and will be again, but no one knows when

And meteor strikes could happen anywhere, anytime, at a size to cause major damage to an area the size of a city

Why do you think it is funny? What is funny about this?

We'd be pissed off if they didn't have one and we needed it.

If anyone on here has a secret phone because of an abusive partner, please turn it off during the test period - or give it to a trusted friend or similar. Being on silent won't stop the noise.

That's a really good point

You can already sign up for flood alerts. I no longer have calls as they rang in the middle of the night but I get texts when we're on flood alert. To be honest I don't really care when it's an alert, only when it's more severe but you can't pick and choose.

That would work for when the test alerts happen, but not when actual real life alerts come through.

My phone does not have the option to disable the alert. I can see it, but the toggle is greyed out (Samsung Galaxy S8).

I will be turning my phone off on the 23rd April, but obviously can't all the time in case an alert comes through. My area often has high risk vulnerable people going missing... my phone will be going off all the time.

Will they do an alert every time someone goes missing? We only get them here for Amber Alerts. Coincidentally, I got one earlier today. The last alert I got was about a month ago, there was a tornado in my city.

My concern is victims of DV who have emergency phones

In case anyone was concerned about the kids in the Amber Alert from my phone, they were found safe. Their mom left them in the car while she went into the gas station and someone stole the car with them in it.

Haven't heard anything about this and I'm so glad you've posted. I've got severe PTSD and alarms send my into pure panic, I'll be turning mine off and hoping to stay in that day so I don't end up having a panic attack when it goes off unexpectedly x

I’m glad you’ve heard about it now. I think it hasn’t been advertised enough and like pps worry about secret phones hidden from abusive partners and anxious people. Maybe they should’ve had it as an ‘opt in’ thing rather than a compulsory thing.

This is the sort of thing we might need alerts and immediate instructions for. These so called "city killers" are our biggest danger from space, as there are so many of them (tens of thousands) and a potential strike might only be detected with a few hours notice or less.

The bigger dangers, country- killers, or those capable of causing and "extinction level event" are far fewer, and will be detected and dealt with years in advance

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65061818

Yes. Causing mass panic and roads would gridlock and block instantly.

so you are against giving people the information and opportunity to evacuate ahead of a natural disaster? Or to take shelter?

Sorry, I dont follow your logic - we dont warn people to evacuate in case too many of them try to, and it gets difficult? Instead we leave them to be obliterated on the spot?

Evacuations save hundreds of thousands of lives every year.

If a warning arrives that your city is in the danger zone, and you need to move as far south as possible straight away, and you decide not to move with your family, rather wait and be incinerated, because you prefer that to a possible traffic jam, then thats your choice, but dont deny the choice to evacuate to everyone else

I'm pretty sure that anything like this would be all over the news (they've been going on enough about a harmless asteroid, so one that is a threat will be wall - wall constant news), so an alert will just add to the panic...if it isn't, because it was detected too late, then not sure an alert is going to help in that situation.

so your argument is everybody should be constantly looking at the news, just in case? What if you are working? what if you are asleep? what if you just dont constantly look at the news?

I just dont understand the opposition to this - we have the technology to be able to be alerted to possible extreme ( or even moderate) immediate dangers, and be given instructions how to stay safe.

And people are against using it?

I ve switched it off already, as soon as i heard about...

You think an alert will save you from a Tsunami or a Meteor strike?

Also, its bloody dangerous as at any moment in time, 10s of 1000s maybe millions of people will be driving....

What the fuck are you supposed to do when told you've 3mins to get out of Devon and Cornwall as a meteor is about to strike but we aren't exactly sure where? or leave Bristol because a Tsunami is about to hit in 45 seconds?

We don't have Tsunami monitoring buoys like they do in the Pacific, so any warning will be very very short.

Amazing how these systems can work in other countries but people think it couldn’t in the UK!

We have this where I live. I get severe fog alerts, upcoming stationary traffic due to a crash (both only when driving in the area). In covid lockdown it was a hoot - every night when curfew started we would be startled by this racket as the messages came through reminding us to stay inside. Of course, they didn't call it curfew but we all know that is what it was.

yes, an alert and instructions could save you from a tsunami, or a meteor strike, or a radiation leak, or a wild fire, or a toxic cloud, or a flood.....

and yes, it might be leave an area, or do not enter an area, or it might be go uphill, or go inside and close the doors and windows or get into a shop basement or underground carpark if you can, or get out of all basement and underground carparks, or fill you bath with water, or don't touch the water coming out of your taps,

or any number of things, but some people think it is o so clever and independent to cut themselves off from sources of safety information, and of course, they will be the people who others have to risk their lives to rescue, and tax payers have to pay to care for, after something bad has happened, and most people have done what they can to keep themselves safe, and some people have considered themselves above it.

In the grand scheme of things, when folk can't get hospital treatment or an ambulance, this is a total waste of money.

Prepping for things that happen once every 1000 years but not doing the things that we all need each and everyday that really would save lives.

e.g such as not shutting down vaccine development programs whcih we ve decided to do......

Like i said... we don't have the means or ability to accurately determine these things, just as likely to drive people into a danger zone as out of it, not to mention the mass panic, with associated injuries/deaths... this alone will cause.

In theory maybe.

In reality people won't act rationally which will completely mess up any attempts of an orderly evacuation and do you really believe that there are mass evacuation plans and the resources needed already in place for major British cities?

Dream on.

So do i get an emergency alert to my phone if a relative has had a fall and has to wait hours for an ambulance