Is The Emergency Alert System Supposed to Alert Emergency?

As most of us in Ontario know, there was a test of the new Alert Ready emergency alert system last week. It’s a good thing it was a test because some people in Ontario didn’t get it at all, some people only got it on some of their devices, the whole province of Quebec didn’t get it because of some improper code, and some phones called 911 on their own!

That would have been a shock. You go to dismiss the alert, and suddenly your phone starts calling somewhere and you hear “911, what’s your emergency?” A lot of people hung up on the 911 person, probably not wanting to get in trouble for falsely calling 911. Sadly, they were wrong again, because if a person hangs up on 911, then the operator has to figure out what happened to the caller and that causes more problems. It would be better if the person just said it was a mistake. The dispatchers only get annoyed if people call 911 about broken washing machines or under-cooked burgers or something equally stupid. Mistakes happen.

After reading that, I’m very relieved that all mine did was shrill at me.

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2 Comments

  1. Both my phones got it. The first one scared the hell out of me even though I had looked at the time a few minutes earlier and knew it would be coming soon.

    1. Yeah it was funny. Mine blasted through the office, and this one dude was like “It’s alright, it’s only a test.” I had to smile because I knew it was a test but still freaking jumped when my phone started blaring. I don’t know if Shmans knew it was only a test though.

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