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.

I got shit on FB for not having the covid app. My phone was too old! My fault... should have bought a newer one to "save gran".

My phone was fine and I deleted the app! I wasn't going to risk being 'pinged' if one if my neighbours had a positive test.

A Tsunami moves at 500 mph in deep ocean, so lets say we had an earthquake in the western approaches.... how long have we got in Sunny Truro? 30mins?

Plus & i keep repeating this, we 've no early deep sea warning systems, so we would get the alert after we ve been hit.... probably the next day.

You re trying to do the govt's job on this to divert from the really issues, like rape attacks, crime, nhs, education crisis etc with more deadcat stories like this and speeches on anti social behavior.

no, any really big tsunami we are likely to have time to get uphill, if we get the warning in time

and this is a thread about the alarm system being put in place, which is why we are talking about the alarm system out in place, and not other things

Why were you even posting about not having the app on Facebook, you are allowed to keep things to yourself you know.

I ve explained to you that without deep sea warning systems, how will anyone know? so any alert will be far too late.

Any really big Tsunami will be within 2 or 300 miles of the UKs furthest most western points.... it will be moving at 500mph, you do the math.

Road networks are so poor in this country that they cannot deal with even work traffic.... let alone everyone trying to leave a city at the same time.

We live in a wet damp country, we do not have conditions where we don't have any rain for 3 or 4 years, which then lead to the raging fires we have seen in Australia and the US, we don't get hit by Hurricanes and rainfall flooding is localised and dealt with by the EA's early warning systems.

You re barking up the wrong tree with this one i'm afraid.

The same Covid app that was advised and yet I was told to turn it off at work or we would all be sent home? And nurses and teachers were advised NOT to install.

That covid app was a bunch of rubbish.

I lived above a shop that had people queuing outside of my house all day. If I had installed that app I'd have been constantly in quarantine.

Well I hope you’re proud of yourself killing all those Grannies? 😆
People are so selfish, they could’ve put cheese in their coffee instead of going to Tescos for milk but oh no another 10 Grannies dead every time they bought ‘essentials’.
Same as turning off this alarm from the Government - selfish. All they want to do is to help their people, of course it’s not about keeping us scared and malleable, no, not at all 🤨