Government alert?!?!

[hotmumshit]

Omg? First use of the government phone alerts, i think??

It doesn't demonstrate that at all. Lots of people ARE fucking stupid and don't get the bleedin obvious. Hence why a lot of perfectly sensible, innocent people have ended up losing their homes and everything in them because there are still too many morons really not getting it. And yeah, that is an emergency.

Oh, and for all those whingeing because the govt happens to be Labour, it's nothing to do with it being "a Labour government", "nanny state" or any other such whiny bollocks. Everything to do with the fire services asking for people to be warned so the govt did. I think a 'shock' like this is a good way to do it. Before all the dimbos start setting up their barbies for tomorrow because common sense doesn't apply to them. It might make some think at least.

I'm sitting in the car with my learner driver son a lot these days.
I think if it had gone off while we were out it def would have been a clutch the handle thingy for me. He's doing well, but I am on high alert.

Yes, it’s a sign that things are genuinely bad that the fire service were the ones asking for it.

Ah well, as long as it's cool, eh. FFS.

That was a different thing. The national alert was tested towards the end of the 'covid era'. I remember because I was volunteering at a covid vaccination centre with loadsvif over 75s when it went off. People were complaining that it wasn't loud enough 🤷‍♀️.

Yes yes yes.

I think unfortunately we do have to state the bleeding obvious because some people are still having bbqs.

some people are just stupid or uneducated and don’t understand the consequence.

agree that’s its opened up conversations. So many threads on MN so at least it’s got far and wide and hopefully people with think a bit.

we need the firefighters rested and ready to help - not exhausted and unable to protect our homes/parks/wildlife and businesses.

There has to be one advantage of speaking Welsh!

Driver delivering my online grocery order read it to me as his phone pinged when he was putting my shopping on my doorstep so I didn't get the shock of seeing it come up on my phone. I hope the twats who have been letting off fireworks over the road for the past three nights take it on board. There is a big patch of desiccated grass, if that catches fire and spreads to the wooden fencing that backs onto a row of terrace houses there is the potential for disaster.

I got the sound and my phone vibrated but I didn’t get a message!!! My son and husband did so no idea why I didn’t. That freaked me out as if it’s something important in the future I might not actually get it!

Oh yes, we had a test last year, and there was one a few years prior to that.

Well, at least the local FB pages have moved past shaming people walking dogs in the heat, and are now posting pictures of people having BBQs.

We had fireworks here last night so morons do need to be told would you believe!

Me too! I was enjoying a quiet drink in a pub garden when everyone’s alarms went off. I looked up expecting to see drones or something. When I read the message, the impact of the alarm was reduced to one of minor annoyance. This will not stop idiots from doing what idiots do and some folk were still dropping their spent cigarette ends on the ground.

Well we live in Wales and got the alert in Welsh. Like the majority of people in Wales we don’t speak Welsh so had to text DDIL in case we needed to do anything. 5 minutes later it came through in English.
it really should have been in both languages at the same time to avoid confusion

What time did it go off for most people? It went off a few minutes ago for me. I never got any of the Covid ones.

Same in Scotland. We haven’t had one today so this isn’t a “national” alert. We had a real one in Jan 2025. I was on a bus and the poor bus driver was terrified but dealt with it so well.

I amazed you can turn them off (settings/notifications)

I have for tonight because it was going off over and over again but will try to remember to turn them on again.

I never got this.

Sadly we do live in a society when some people have to have the blindingly obvious pointed out to them. Public toilets have signs up telling us to wash our hands, signs are on the roadside telling us that drinking and driving kills and so on

The alert was meant to get our attention, this is a critical incident and the threat to life is high In addition to all the reported pressures on frontline emergency services there will be knock on effects in terms of response to all emergencies. I can guarantee that there are people who do not realise that 999 calls for all the services are answered by BT before being passed to the relevant service. One of the greatest risks an emergency service can face (the greatest risk in my humble opinion) is the emergency they don’t yet know about Once the relevant call taker starts the conversation the risk is starting to be managed.

If BT are struggling with a high volume of calls, even a few seconds could be life or death for a DA victim or an RTC scenario.

Like many people I am politically disillusioned at the moment (not just the current govt) but I do think they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t

Yesterday's news mentioned that you can report any fires in the open such as bbqs, camp fires, etc. to the Police via 101.

Absolute misuse of the system. Abroad I’ve had wildfire alerts along the lines of there is a fire in this area if you are located between towns A, B and C please evacuate along this highway to this region. Sensible and appropriate. Asking people not to start fires is not an appropriate use for the system which is meant to notify you of an immediate and ongoing threat to life and if it is abused in this way will end up not being fit for purpose.

It didn't particularly alarm me personally, but why didn't they advertise it on the news a few hours in advance so that most people would know it was coming?

no they weren’t?

well we’ve managed without them until now, so I’ll be just fine thanks.

My phone used have the option to turn them off greyed out, so it was not possible to disable them.
Now there it not even a setting for alerts, and my phone has not gone off during the tests last year or today.