We had some flooding rains yesterday. It got pretty bad. My phone was getting these strange alerts all day telling me that it was raining. We dont have an app for any alerts. We didnt sign up for any alerts, but they alerted our phones anyway. I had heard about this mandatory software being in the smart phones, but never had it happen to mine until yesterday.
Many residents throughout Acadiana may have been startled to receive a breaking weather alert on their smart phone devices early this morning. Probably some of you were awakened by the peculiar message.
During “Nathan & Bernie in the Morning,” I received such an alert during our live broadcast, which directed me to tune in to local media. Talk of the weather alerts, which continued into the day and afternoon, continued on social media, many assuming that the alerts were simply push notifications from their weather apps.
It turns out those alerts were not the work of an app at all.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Federal Communications Commission, and others have been working with wireless carriers very recently in order to send out what’s called Wireless Emergency Alerts. NOAA says these messages are meant to help keep you safe during an emergency and are sent out through cell phone towers–any cell phone in a particular tower’s coverage area would have received the alert, NOAA, says, and the messages are not targeted at any specific users.
NOAA says WEAs are sent out during extreme weather warnings, like today, as well as during local emergencies requiring evacuation or immediate action and Presidential Alerts during a national emergency.
Sounds impressive, right? If you don’t want to be annoyed by the alerts, you do have the option to opt-out, but you can’t be opted out of Presidential Alerts.
Read More: What Were Those Weather Alerts We Got On Our Phones This Morning? | http://kpel965.com/what-were-those-weather-emergency-alerts-we-got-on-our-phones-this-morning/?trackback=tsmclip
Bulldog,
You can turn off the alerts. If you have an iPhone, go to settings>notification center, then scroll down to “government alerts” and toggle the buttons to turn off amber alerts and emergency alerts. I’ve not ever received a presidential alert, and hope I never do. I hope this helps. If you have an android, I’m not sure where to adjust the settings. Perhaps another poster can help.
Thanks Deb. Just made the changes. I don’t need the government telling me that it is raining.
I think that anything coming from DC is still unstoppable though.
Glad to help Bulldog. No one needs the .gov agencies sending anything to our phones. I’m afraid it would be them pi$$in on me telling me it’s raining LOL
Sorry it took so long to reply, I’ve been out most of the day and just sat down. Have a great evening!
I noticed the same thing on my phone last week only it was an Amber alert, someone’s kid got abducted, supposedly . Then I was in the Auto Zone and the same alert tone sounded in the store. They must have the store wired up and a speaker over in the corner, because I couldn’t see where the sound was coming from. And now this story. My conclusion is our government is testing their emergency system to see if it works. One day an O’bama recorded message will be heard telling us all to turn in our guns and a curfew…no one outside at night, and no people gathering of more than 5 persons, and banks will be closed for a bank-holiday.
The only alert I’ve gotten was an Amber one.
I would have thought everyone would be happy that your government was looking out after your best interest ( I hope you know I’m joking). This is why I have an old flip phone. I don’t get or sent texts, twitter, emails or any of that other crap. I can get calls and call out and voice messages. I probably couldn’t use that stuff anyway because I’m lucky I don’t burn down Las Vegas when I turn on my computer. Not tech savvy and don’t want to be. I’ve always looked at it as , if we can’t remember how to do it manually what will we do when all this tech goes out the window.
It is refreshing to hear that there are people like you out there who actually get it! Some people think that presidential alert will be used to alert us of a pending nuclear attack or something like that. Are people stupid enough to believe that the government would alert us of a pending nuclear attack? Or even a lesser terrorist attack for that matter.