Yesterday evening my partner and I were at a friend's Birthday party enjoying some food, having good convos, when suddenly alarms started going off. At first we thought it was the fire alarm for the flat where our friend lives, but then we realised...it was an emergency alert on our phones.
In that moment the nation as a whole grabbed their phones, hearts racing, wondering if this was it, and nukes were about to start raining down on us...
But no, it was instead a general severe alert about the high risk of wildfires, and to not light any fires or have any barbecues to help prevent them.
So, as you may be aware, many of us are currently crawling our way through THE FIFTH HEATWAVE OF THE YEAR!!!
Lot of places (including by me) have been experiencing 35 degree plus weather, no proper rain for weeks, and night's that are so warm you feel like you just got out of a swimming pool you're sweating so much (well, if you're as bad with heat as I am anyway...)
Because everywhere is so dry, this has led to small fires getting out of control and spreading, and in some cases people have lost their homes, which prompted the severe alert to go out to everyone (I even got it twice!)
I saw a lot of people online who were very upset about a severe alert being used so generally, rather than targeted for specific areas, and even turning the alerts off on their phones because of it.
Personally I'm kinda split.
On the one hand, I can see that, as the Prime Minster, you witness the devastation that's being caused, along with the fact that the fire brigade are so stretched and they're having to bring in the military to help, you wanting to send out an alert warning people to be careful, especially with another hot weekend approaching that people will want to have barbecues and the like.
On the other hand though, having a general alert that makes our phone go off that loud when you're not in imminent danger, like there being a flash flood near you for example, does feel like overkill. Have the message come up on your phone, but don’t have the alarm going off at the same time, at least that way everyone gets the message without scaring people into thinking the world is about to end. Plus, many people felt like this was a boy that cried wolf situation, and will now be ignoring, or turning off this alert, which could lead to people not being aware of a dangerous situation near them, which obviously isn’t good.
Maybe it was overkill, or maybe this alert ended up preventing at least a few people accidentally starting wildfires, we'll never know for sure. What I am sure of though is that, while I'm glad it wasn't the end times, if it had been at least we'd have been in good company, which I guess is all you can ask for when the apocalypse comes knocking.
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