UK Emergency Alert Tests

[Ediswan]

I do wonder whether such alerts would be any help in incidents such as Boscastle in 2004.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Boscastle_flood

The 2004 Boscastle flood (Cornish: An Lanwes Kastel Boterel 2004) occurred on Monday, 16 August 2004 in the two villages of Boscastle and Crackington Haven[1] in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The villages suffered extensive damage after flash floods caused by an exceptional amount of rain that fell over eight hours that afternoon. The flood in Boscastle was filmed and extensively reported but the floods in Crackington Haven and Rocky Valley were not mentioned beyond the local news. The floods were the worst in local memory.

 

[102 fan]

It's more than for weather, I'm sure of that.

 

[Meerkat]

Yes. As I mentioned earlier, a vibrating phone vibrates the thing it's on. I can definitely hear it downstairs.

I'm not sure you are in the majority. Women in particular tend to leave their phone in bags and coats.

I think it will be used a lot more than that. For instance, I don't consider it urgent to be warned of the weather forecast in this manner as it doesn't require immediate action at 3am,

I get the impression they intend it for red weather warnings when you may need to evacuate

This clearly does have the potential to cause road accidents.

I reckon that most people could look at their mobile (particularly if their car replicates the screen) whilst driving with a lot less distraction than trying to work out how to find a local radio station!

The people who read the news stories are probably not the people who 'need' the alerts!

Conspiracy folk will read the news, and if they only read conspiracy news sources then they deserve all they get. If they get the test signal in April then that should trigger them to look up how to turn it off (though they might be too busy connecting it to some giant conspiracy on Facebook)

You also assume the ability to turn the option off will remain into the future, which they will no doubt remove if enough people do turn it off.

Thats tinfoil hat territory.

I fail to see any circumstance where this will be useful.

Where there is a serious flood, poisonous gas leak, active shooter? Hopefully it wont ever be useful because it wont be needed.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

You also assume the ability to turn the option off will remain into the future, which they will no doubt remove if enough people do turn it off.

I fail to see any circumstance where this will be useful. Yes, if we lived in a hurricane or tornado zone, like much of the USA, then that would potentially be a good use for this. But we don't.

I'm certainly with you on the first point. Remember smart energy meters that people claiming to be 'in the know' said cannot be changed remotely? Would you adam and eve it they can and have been. If a smart meter can be set to pre-pay mode remotely it stands to reason that it can also be set to (false) zero-credit remotely and thus cut off someones energy supply (perhaps for a fixed period at times of excessive demand). As has been said, mobile networks can already restrict usage by non emergency users. Forecasting that bit of a software tweak that gives someone control of your phone is not in any way tin-foilery. Look at the generally unwanted stuff that comes pre-loaded to a phone or laptop and see how many of those apps it is impossible to remove / de-activate.

Regarding the second point. The incident in West Cumbria where a gunman went on the rampage from Workington and up the Eskdale Valley would certainly be an example. Whether the new system can be activated quickly and accurately enough to have a beneficial impact in such a fast moving scenario is one question. That would depend on who has direct access to the system and who has authority to issue a broadcast. Leading on from that is the issue of whether the system will have pre-set messages (and associated advice) for all reasonably foreseeable scenarios or will it require someone to sit dithering about what exactly the warning should be, who it should go to, and what advice on behaviour it should suggest.

A second more recent example would be the Whaley Bridge dam near collapse.

In both those cases people from out of the area required warning as much as those who lived in the area and rapid dissemination was (in Cumbria) or could have been (in Whaley Bridge) critical to saving lives.

With regard to the Boscastle situation, or Lynton all those years before that. Peple knew there had been massive amounts of rain, it was the unexpected impact of that rain that was the issue. I'm not sure an alert system can deal with that without issuing many false alarms. The emergency system that cries wolf too often will be the one that gets ignored when it actually is important to take note of it. That is outside of our hands, one can only hope that those in charge of the system realise the implications of too many alerts and behave accordingly. Time will tell.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Maintaining approximately 32,000 sirens and their control systems wasn't very easy or cheap! That was certainly part of the reason why the old system was retired around 1990.

The number I have for the amount of sirens was 7000?

It certainly was not easy. They weren't actually fully tested from the mid 60s to the end of the Cold War due to fears the sirens might explode and shower debris onto the streets below. Apparently they were only given a "flick test" - so they would only be momentarily turned on to make sure the current actually got to the motor.

 

[Ediswan]

With regard to the Boscastle situation, or Lynton all those years before that.

It was Lynmouth that flooded. That event has its own conspiracy theory.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Does it work on old Nokias,my elderly farther still uses one.

 

[The_Train]

I've switched it off - not risking this Government affecting me smashing my best score on Tetris

 

[eoff]

It would be simpler to install and maintain a huge network of sirens audible to every household rather than do something in software using existing devices?

Really?

Countries have made that choice:

Alerting and informing

www.babs.admin.ch

 

[MikeWM]

Regarding the second point.

They are two very good examples, but I remain concerned of 'unintended consequences' of this sort of thing even in those cases.

We've already mentioned Grenfell above - if eg. they had done an emergency alert there reminding people *not* to evacuate early on, per official policy, it is quite possible even more people would have died.

In the case where there is an active shooter, someone may eg. be hiding from the shooter and their location is revealed by their phone making a load of noise - even if they remembered to switch it to silent. That's the sort of thing that probably happens in movies rather more than in real life, but it is a possibility.

All that being said, I'm significantly less perturbed by this alert system than perhaps I appear - I'm finding it an interesting discussion mostly, there's far bigger battles to fight that worrying too much about this. Though I'm going to be vey irritated by it if eg. I'm in a cinema when everyone's phone suddenly goes off.

--

Does it work on old Nokias,my elderly farther still uses one.

As it turns out, no - nor on my Microsoft Lumia

https://www.gov.uk/alerts/how-alerts-work#compatible-devices

Emergency alerts work on:

iPhones running iOS 14.5 or later
Android phones and tablets running Android 11 or later

 

[Bletchleyite]

Countries have made that choice:

Alerting and informing

www.babs.admin.ch

Switzerland is institutionally paranoid. It wasn't that long ago they repealed the law mandating every home to have a nuclear bunker.

 

[Noddy]

I really don't see many emergencies for which this system can be properly used. As has been mentioned, chemical works, Broadmoor and such like already have alert systems. I have relatives who live on the Somerset Levels. Believe me they know when there is the potential for a 'significant weather related event’.

And what about holiday makers, people working in the area or other visitors who are not as familiar with the risks as your relatives?

Though I'm going to be vey irritated by it if eg. I'm in a cinema when everyone's phone suddenly goes off.

Isn’t that the point though!! If the alert goes off in the cinema, theatre, concert that there’s a major flood risk, an active shooter near by, or what ever, it’s probably time to leave or hide. Hopefully it’s never needed but if the system save even one life in such a scenario it’s worth 10 seconds of disturbance occasionally.

 

[jfollows]

It won't work.

It's been implemented by the "something must be done" and, especially, "something must be seen to be done" brigade.
The same sort who impose silly road restrictions because, once, some careless and thoughtless pedestrian was killed because of their own stupidity.

It'll either be overused, either by having "test firings" too often, or it'll be used for weather warnings and all sorts of similar things. Alternatively, it won't be used and on the one occasion when there might be a justified use for it, it won't be used and then there'll be a messy inquest into why not.

Its use might save a life, so that's good, but the odds of it being my life that is saved are vanishingly small. I'm prepared to take my chances without it and have disabled it on my iPhone to the best of my ability.

At the end of the day this is about politicians being able to point at something they've done "for us". There are countless other things they can do which would be far more beneficial, but they're "political", for example properly addressing the climate crisis rather than paying lip service to it - but substitute your own bugbear here, it's not clear-cut and people will disagree.

 

[MikeWM]

Isn’t that the point though!! If the alert goes off in the cinema, theatre, concert that there’s a major flood risk, an active shooter near by, or what ever, it’s probably time to leave or hide. Hopefully it’s never needed but if the system save even one life in such a scenario it’s worth 10 seconds of disturbance occasionally.

It strikes me that if the message were real, everyone getting it simultaneously in a crowded place such as a concert or nightclub or sports stadium could easily create panic and a serious crushing risk (or falling on stairs risk, as tragically happened at Bethnal Green in 1943) as people all try to move or leave simultaneously. Far better to just tell the people who run the venue and let them follow their normal evacuation plan.

The 'if it saves even one life' argument sounds rather familiar after the last few years - where such arguments usually ended up with measures that almost certainly ended more lives than they saved - but in general there are very few things that do so without some possible downside too, and we need to keep in mind that balance.

 

[AlterEgo]

Is it dystopian? Sounds fairly normal alarm sound to me.

Sounds like a cockpit warning horn which will terrify anyone who's listened to things like the Western Airlines 2605 CVR recording!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Isn’t that the point though!! If the alert goes off in the cinema, theatre, concert that there’s a major flood risk, an active shooter near by, or what ever, it’s probably time to leave or hide. Hopefully it’s never needed but if the system save even one life in such a scenario it’s worth 10 seconds of disturbance occasionally.

If that's all it's used for, yes.

Thing is, their initial announcements suggesting it might be used for things like red weather warnings (which don't require immediate action, and thus don't require a blaring siren) doesn't give it credibility. This really should only be used for things where if you don't act immediately there's a serious risk to life and/or property, so stuff like a tornado, a nuclear power station emergency, a possible dam failure (remember the Whaley Bridge incident?), an active shooter, a credible bomb threat etc.

It does seem it's designed for two levels of alert, so ideally only the top level would use the alarm sound and the other level would just appear like a text message to read when you feel like. For instance it isn't going to be useful to me to know when asleep that I'm advised not to travel due to heavy snow in my area, I can read that when I wake up, just like I have a nose at other notifications to see if any impact on my day.

Sounds like a cockpit warning horn which will terrify anyone who's listened to things like the Western Airlines 2605 CVR recording!

Just listened to that and wished I hadn't.

It's quite possible the sound does derive from aircraft alarms, then. It's a facility already on phones, so I suspect it was specced by the US Government (who with frequent earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes etc have more need for it than us; a nuclear attack warning is of very little utility).

 

[AlterEgo]

Just listened to that and wished I hadn't.

It's quite possible the sound does derive from aircraft alarms, then.

Possibly. I think the sound is otherwise benign unless you associate it with the DC-10 alarm. It doesn't sound like an air raid siren nor does it sound like any sort of car warning so it's a reasonably good choice.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Possibly. I think the sound is otherwise benign unless you associate it with the DC-10 alarm. It doesn't sound like an air raid siren nor does it sound like any sort of car warning so it's a reasonably good choice.

Perhaps it is that association. I think it's also been used on a few films because it is the sound the US emergency alerts have used for a long time, so it's associated with disasters generally.

 

[Phil56]

It won't work.

It's been implemented by the "something must be done" and, especially, "something must be seen to be done" brigade.
The same sort who impose silly road restrictions because, once, some careless and thoughtless pedestrian was killed because of their own stupidity.

It'll either be overused, either by having "test firings" too often, or it'll be used for weather warnings and all sorts of similar things. Alternatively, it won't be used and on the one occasion when there might be a justified use for it, it won't be used and then there'll be a messy inquest into why not.

Its use might save a life, so that's good, but the odds of it being my life that is saved are vanishingly small. I'm prepared to take my chances without it and have disabled it on my iPhone to the best of my ability.

At the end of the day this is about politicians being able to point at something they've done "for us". There are countless other things they can do which would be far more beneficial, but they're "political", for example properly addressing the climate crisis rather than paying lip service to it - but substitute your own bugbear here, it's not clear-cut and people will disagree.

Sadly I fear you may be right. A bit like all those huge Motorway warning signs which say "delays ahead" or "motorway closed ahead" which are completely useless as they don't give you enough information to tell you what to do, i.e. what junction to come off, the exact location of the incident, alternative routes etc.

Or like the our village by pass road which used to be 50mph and then reduced to 40 and now reduced to 30 apparently "because of fatalities". Well, I've lived here 25 years and the only fatalities on that road were two separate incidents of young lads, both drunk as a skunk, crashing and killing themselves in the early hours of the morning. Only a stupid council official would think that a blind drunk driver would take any notice of a speed limit sign at 1am!

 

[Ediswan]

I think it's also been used on a few films because it is the sound the US emergency alerts have used for a long time, so it's associated with disasters generally.

It is specifically prohibited (US law) to broadcast the genuine alert sound. Hence, the film industry avoids doing so as it would require a re-edit for TV broadcast.

Sometimes they slip up.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ing-emergency-alert-tones-to-advertise-movie/

Viacom and ESPN must pay $1.4 million to the government as punishment for airing a movie commercial that misused Emergency Alert System (EAS) warning tones.

 

[najaB]

It won't work.

I love when people just out and out state that something will not work, period. People said the same thing about the horseless carriage, the Internet and spaceflight.

Thing is, their initial announcements suggesting it might be used for things like red weather warnings (which don't require immediate action, and thus don't require a blaring siren) doesn't give it credibility.

That depends entirely on the particular weather warning, and the geographical scope of the alert. No value in sending a warning to the entirety of northern England about a storm in three days, but a lot of value in sending a warning to a town about a flash flood that is imminent in the next couple of hours.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That depends entirely on the particular weather warning, and the geographical scope of the alert. No value in sending a warning to the entirety of northern England about a storm in three days, but a lot of value in sending a warning to a town about a flash flood that is imminent in the next couple of hours.

I agree. As I said, it really should be restricted to warnings about things that are an imminent severe danger to life and/or property in the target area. I'm happy to be sent messages about other stuff (e.g. apparently Canada uses theirs to ask people to look out for a missing child) but it shouldn't wake me up at 3am to do so.

 

[jfollows]

Sadly I fear you may be right. A bit like all those huge Motorway warning signs which say "delays ahead" or "motorway closed ahead" which are completely useless as they don't give you enough information to tell you what to do, i.e. what junction to come off, the exact location of the incident, alternative routes etc.

Ah yes, you remind me of "RDS" (I think) car radios which could be set to switch to traffic alerts.
I tried it once, I joined the M6 at J18 heading south and it told me of "severe delays" at the M54 junction, nothing unusual there of course, this was before the M6 toll, six lanes of traffic into three or four was always a problem.
When I got to the "severe delays" I remember having to slow down slightly to 90mph (before speed cameras too, of course).
So I turned off this "feature" since it was useless in reality, I just took my chances with traffic as I always had done.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It is specifically prohibited (US law) to broadcast the genuine alert sound. Hence, the film industry avoids doing so as it would require a re-edit for TV broadcast.

Sometimes they slip up.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ing-emergency-alert-tones-to-advertise-movie/

Thanks.

There's a Wiki article on the US EAS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System

Which among other things says:

The SAME header bursts are followed by an attention tone, which lasts between 8 and 25 seconds, depending on the originating station. The tone is 1050 Hz (help·info) on a NOAA Weather Radio station. On commercial broadcast stations, a "two-tone" (help·info) attention signal of 853 Hz and 960 Hz sine waves is used instead, the same signal used by the older Emergency Broadcast System. These tones have become infamous, and can be considered both frightening and annoying by viewers; in fact, the two tones, which form approximately the interval of a just major second at an unusually high pitch, were chosen specifically for their ability to draw attention, due to their unpleasantness on the human ear. The SAME header is equally known for its shrillness, which many have found to be startling. The "two-tone" system is no longer required as of 1998, and is to be used only for audio alerts before EAS messages.[57][full citation needed] Like the EBS, the attention signal is followed by a voice message describing the details of the alert.

So it is specifically designed to get your attention by being unpleasant, a bit like really loud fire alarms!

Ah yes, you remind me of "RDS" (I think) car radios which could be set to switch to traffic alerts.
I tried it once, I joined the M6 at J18 heading south and it told me of "severe delays" at the M54 junction, nothing unusual there of course, this was before the M6 toll, six lanes of traffic into three or four was always a problem.
When I got to the "severe delays" I remember having to slow down slightly to 90mph (before speed cameras too, of course).
So I turned off this "feature" since it was useless in reality, I just took my chances with traffic as I always had done.

Satnavs have basically rendered RDS redundant, but I did think the same, yes. I can actually remember the RDS tones because a number of radio stations used to incorporate them into their traffic jingle. But in this case it seems that's the data precursor and this tone isn't intended for that purpose.

 

[DarloRich]

Listening to the recording above it sounds to me that the next words heard should be:

Terrain. Terrain. Pull up. Pull up!

(I have watched air crash investigators to you know )

 

[najaB]

I've just seen somebody on Twitter making the rather good point that this - particularly the fact that it will sound even if you have sound turned off - puts at risk people in precarious domestic situations that have a 'secret' phone they don't want other people they live with to know about.

Surely someone in that kind of situation would leave their secret phone turned off or in airplane mode anyway when they aren't using it?

 

[Baxenden Bank]

And what about holiday makers, people working in the area or other visitors who are not as familiar with the risks as your relatives?



Isn’t that the point though!! If the alert goes off in the cinema, theatre, concert that there’s a major flood risk, an active shooter near by, or what ever, it’s probably time to leave or hide. Hopefully it’s never needed but if the system save even one life in such a scenario it’s worth 10 seconds of disturbance occasionally.

There's a big metal barrier blocking the road and a number of big yellow signs saying 'risk of flooding - do not pass this point'. Of course that doesn't stop numpty's trying to drive round it, or when it was a temporary plastic barrier, getting out of their vehicle and moving it. But then again a numpty will ignore the phone alert just the same. Because 'it isn't as bad as they say' or 'the rules don't apply to me because I have special exemption'.

Causing a cinema full of people, or a ground full of football fans to stampede for the exit might not be such a good idea. What could possibly go wrong? Might as well go to the front / centre spot and hysterically scream fire.

 

[MikeWM]

Surely someone in that kind of situation would leave their secret phone turned off or in airplane mode anyway when they aren't using it?

Hopefully so, but we all make mistakes from time to time, even over really important stuff. You may be relying on it being set to silent *too* as a backup in case you forget to do that.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Sadly I fear you may be right. A bit like all those huge Motorway warning signs which say "delays ahead" or "motorway closed ahead" which are completely useless as they don't give you enough information to tell you what to do, i.e. what junction to come off, the exact location of the incident, alternative routes etc.

Or like the our village by pass road which used to be 50mph and then reduced to 40 and now reduced to 30 apparently "because of fatalities". Well, I've lived here 25 years and the only fatalities on that road were two separate incidents of young lads, both drunk as a skunk, crashing and killing themselves in the early hours of the morning. Only a stupid council official would think that a blind drunk driver would take any notice of a speed limit sign at 1am!

Or National Rail Enquires 'services may be disrupted, delayed or cancelled'. Yep, needed a message to work that one out, never mind the detail.

Yes but 'something must be done'. Perhaps the effectiveness of the 'something' really ought to be considered, balanced against the inconveneince to non-numpty's!

 

[najaB]

Causing a cinema full of people, or a ground full of football fans to stampede for the exit might not be such a good idea. What could possibly go wrong? Might as well go to the front / centre spot and hysterically scream fire.

The difference, of course, being that if one were to scream "Fire!" then everyone will react at the same time, whereas with an emergency alert some people won't have their phones turned on or with them, some people will look at the alert immediately, and others will ignore it completely.

Hopefully so, but we all make mistakes from time to time, even over really important stuff. You may be relying on it being set to silent *too* as a backup in case you forget to do that.

So your objection to emergency alerts which, in other countries have saved lives and avoided injury, is that a small percentage of the small number of people who are subject to extreme domestic abuse will choose to have secret phones, and that some small percentage of them might occasionally forget to put their phones into airplane mode.