Did you get the Emergency Alert test?

I find two stage verification a pain as well.
They still haven't cracked security online have they, meanwhile we all just are expected to remember yards of passwords and jump through hoops.

Surely they can do better.

 

I have disabled those alerts on my phone. There have been many reports of people not receiving the alert for anything between 3 and 20 minutes after it was supposed to be sent. If that happens in a real emergency I won't have time to tuck my head between my legs and kiss my arse goodbye.

 

I also found that when logging in to my on line bank account but I found a way around it. I can't remember how I did it though. It was a nuisance.

 

I didn't think you could disable the Emergency Alert, if you can what's the point.
I grew up in a town where every couple of months the repurposed air raid siren on the town police station roof was run up to speed for a few minutes. It's new purpose was in case of a storm surge causing flooding as happened in 1953. You certainly heard that going off.

 

What a waste of time the alerts are. What exactly would we need them for? The only thing I can think of is a nuclear attack and there's no point in that, as we'll all be fried anyway. I don't have a smart phone but a basic Nokia. It gets turned on once a week when I'm out shopping, which makes the unnecessary alerts pointless anyway.

I did hear the first alert on my other half's phone. It's different to the alert in America, they use a siren.

 

I heard mine ( I was sat next to mobile) but as someone said earlier on, it wasn’t that loud given all the hype about it. I was fully expecting it to blast my eardrums but it hardly made it down the auditory canal

 

I didn't get one or didn't notice it

 

There is this assumption that everyone has one of those smart phones. I got one earlier this year, so that I could use the radio when I'm out for a walk, and also for the camera function. I hate it though, so went back to my old phone. I can still use it as a radio and camera, but we can't get the photos to transfer to this laptop, so that's a waste of time too.
I was out when it happened, just finishing my purchase at B&Q, and a woman at the next till made a right song and dance about it. A lot of people don't even seem to have known it was happening which, when you consider how much time they spend clamped to their phones, seems odd to me. I presume they never look at news items....
I also agree that it wasn't that loud. I remember the last one as daughter's phone went off and it was piercing.
I don't see the point of it if it can't be properly heard either.

 

I got it twice, a few seconds apart, once on my tablet and then once on my phone. Which means it's coming through the internet as well as through the mobile phone network because my tablet doesn't have a SIM card. I don't think that happened last time (or maybe the tablet was off). I don't think it was as loud as last time either.

 

I got it this time, not last time though. Not as loud as I was expecting and it was next to me. OH's phone was downstairs ( we were upstairs) and we didn't hear his. Same model, make and network. I will keep it enabled......You never know.

 

No smart phones here but we do have an ipad and nothing happened on that.

 

Mine was loud, I tend to have my phone on silent all the time though

 

The idea behind the alerts system is so that if, for example, you are in an area at high risk of flooding, you can be alerted to it. It’s used in other countries too, alerting people to threats in their area, eg hurricane, forest fires etc. We, too, are increasingly vulnerable to fires (think of the York Moors recently as an example) - such a system can alert people to these dangers. It’s really not about the threat of an impending nuclear attack, more about safety at times of possible danger to life and home.

 

It's OK as long as it only gets used at times of extreme emergency, if it starts getting used in a similar way to the weather warnings we get these days people will just ignore it.

 

A story called 'Cry Wolf' comes to mind.