The new emergency alert?

I haven’t heard of this.

There has just been a piece about this on the BBC news. A good idea.

It’s already a ‘thing’ in America. I knew my son received alerts on his phone but I was astonished to receive thunderstorm warnings on my British phone when I visited!

Well, I already rceive warnings about flood warning s on my landline as we liv on the edge of a flood plain. I think it is an excellent idea.

Thank you Sar I found the item. Here’s a link to the story on the BBC website.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62549122

We had a property on a river front, even 10 years ago I got SMS flood alerts.

Will it also tell us how to suck eggs?

It didn’t mention any egg-based skills in the report Watermeadow, if this is something people feel they need perhaps you could start a petition

Fifteen or so years ago I used to work on reception in an office close to a river and used to regularly get phone alerts about high tides and flood warnings. I assumed the houses nearby had the same alerts.

They are looking to add terrorist warnings to it so in the event of an attack people know to avoid the area.
I think it's a good idea, I rarely watch or listen to the news so wouldn't get warnings that way. I get work related warnings on my phone via the Everbridge app already so it's just an extension of that.

We receive flood alerts and are very glad to receive them.

The fact that it is raining hard and has been for some time is no guide to whether or not we may be in danger of flooding. The danger, in our case, comes from the brook that runs close to our home and its headwaters are some distance away and the water that feeds it are the downs up to five miles away from it. So we may be in bright sunshine and receive a flood warning, or have pouring rain and be in no danger of floods at all. Our village flooded very badly in 2007 and again in 2009.

It may be sucking eggs to you, watermeadow, but to us it is the the safety of the inhabitants and houses in our village.

I would be very happy to have warnings of weather events if they were imminent. Our weather is now so variable, that days that are expected to be hot, can suddenly change to extremely hot with little notice. Strong winds change course. Remember 1987?

I’ve no problem with them at all.

Me neither, Jax. We get warnings about storms extreme weather conditions and even things like bird flu. We have to report any dead seabirds we see to DEFRA. In my view any warning is good.

watermeadow

Will it also tell us how to suck eggs?

Brilliant ?

I think it's a very good idea and makes sense.

Living in a bungalow next to a river flood warnings are more than useful to us for peace of mind I’m with M0nica, they have their uses, of course we all decide whether to opt in or not.

watermeadow

Will it also tell us how to suck eggs?

I’m afraid my skills in clairvoyance are not very well developed so, where I live, it would be rather useful at times to know when, for example, a foot of snow is about to be dumped on us just as the school day ends, so we can ensure our children/GC are able to brought home safely.

LtEve

They are looking to add terrorist warnings to it so in the event of an attack people know to avoid the area.
I think it's a good idea, I rarely watch or listen to the news so wouldn't get warnings that way. I get work related warnings on my phone via the Everbridge app already so it's just an extension of that.

HI, I'm just wondering - how would we know if these are genuine or disruptive hoaxes?

Forewarned is forearmed it's beneficial especially if living in a flood risk area. Equally living in an area vulnerable to wild fires alerts can only be a good thing.

You can always double check on www.gov.uk/alerts where all the alerts will be listed if you are at all concerned an alert may not be genuine.

Given the amount of scam texts I receive (including ones that appear to come from the same number as the genuine NHS service), I wonder how secure these will be? I know it’s only information but people could be fooled into clicking through to something nasty…

From memory( I am in the area that had the test messages) they don’t come through as ordinary text messages. They also have a distinctive sound alert. As I nearly always have my phone on silent it must be able to bypass that. Could be embarrassing in church but then I guess everyone else’s phones would sound at the same time and I’d rather be aware of the event than not.
It will hopefully mean people will take notice and not put themselves at unnecessary risk.

Is it going to apply when we have 2cms of snow? I always like to be well prepared!

I think its a great idea - just hope its also for fire. My friend in NZ received an alert on her phone at 1am which potentially saved her life as the fire in the village she lived in in the South Island completeley destroyed the majority of homes