Germany's Nationwide Emergency Warning Day Sees Bumpy Rollout (dw.com) 23
For those living in or visiting Germany on Thursday, things got loud this morning. At 11 a.m. sharp (0900 GMT) Germany carried out a nationwide test of its civil alarm systems -- with everything from sirens to push notifications on smartphones being tested. The test was slated to run for exactly 20 minutes.
It's the first test of its kind since Germany was reunified in 1991. From a report: According to the Office for Protection and Disaster Aid (BBK), the national emergency warning day is intended to test out Germany's warning systems and prepare the public for what to do in the event of a national emergency. "On the one hand, this is about conducting a technical test of the warning systems. The other is that we want to sensitize the population with the warning day. We want to give them an understanding of what such warning signals, such as the sirens, mean," said Christoph Unger, the head of the BBK.
While sirens wailed across many parts of Germany, the emergency test day saw a bumpy roll out in other areas -- particularly with more modern technology. It was the first time that nationwide emergency push notifications were due to be sent out -- but many users reported either not receiving a notification at all or getting one after a delay. "The nationwide MoWaS [Modular warning system] could only be received after a delay. The reason for this was an unscheduled simultaneous triggering of a large number of warning messages via MoWaS," the BBK wrote on Twitter The system uses a satellite system to send out warning messages to public broadcasters, news agencies, critical infrastructure companies -- and smartphone users with so-called "warning apps."
While sirens wailed across many parts of Germany, the emergency test day saw a bumpy roll out in other areas -- particularly with more modern technology. It was the first time that nationwide emergency push notifications were due to be sent out -- but many users reported either not receiving a notification at all or getting one after a delay. "The nationwide MoWaS [Modular warning system] could only be received after a delay. The reason for this was an unscheduled simultaneous triggering of a large number of warning messages via MoWaS," the BBK wrote on Twitter The system uses a satellite system to send out warning messages to public broadcasters, news agencies, critical infrastructure companies -- and smartphone users with so-called "warning apps."
Yeah Right Test (Score:1)
So at a guess either war or aliens, certainly not for epidemic, get every one running around panicking in groups. I think war is extremely unlikely and at a guess they are probably jumping the gun on aliens ;D.
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It's meant to notify them when the Merkeljugen take to the streets and the fourth empire begins. That itself is preceded by a simple hand movement:
https://azizonomics.files.word... [wordpress.com]
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What is a "Merkeljugen(d)"?
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Nah, he wanted to mix "Hitlerjugend" with Merkle, and wanted to type "Merkeljugend", but typoed.
"jugend" means youth, Hitler had a kid/teenager political organization which you were supposed to enroll your children into "to make them proper Nazis" (otherwise they had no carrier chance when growing up and going to university). It is the "youth organization" of the NSDAP, the Nazi party of Hitlers Germany.
Comparing Merkel with Hitlers is just disgusting.
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I think war is extremely unlikely
Most people do until it actually happens. The reality is emergency alert systems are multi-faceted. The Netherlands has an emergency alert system too they test monthly, every few months they also test the mobile warning system. The latter they use all the time and are localised around events.
Germany's Nationwide Emergency Warning Day Issues (Score:2, Troll)
Or do we all completely ignore our input values now? If the election system isn't trusted,
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but, but, but, what happens if someone doesn't know it's just a test? Children could be hurt.
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That's why CDC drills and tests center around zombie apocalypse.
Does Germany know about Tornadoes? (Score:2)
Where I live the civil defense sirens are tested once a week. And sometimes they go off for real. Text messages are kind of useless when you are already aware that your house could be blown to smithereens at any moment.
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Where I live the civil defense sirens are tested once a week. And sometimes they go off for real. Text messages are kind of useless when you are already aware that your house could be blown to smithereens at any moment.
Tornadoes exist in Germany but they are rare and not that strong. A once-a-decade tornado in Germany is called Tuesday afternoon in the US.
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Yes, we have Tornadoes, but they are pretty old and will be phased out soon.
Testing once in three decades? (Score:3)
Even though my view of the Germans always being very systematic has already been challenged, I'm still surprised by this. No tests in almost three decades, whoa. In Finland we have the test of the sirens every two weeks. We don't have a push notification system in place, though, so they're ahead on that one (at least this is what I know). We do have an emergency message broadcast system in the TV and radio, which also is tested regularly, but not quite as often.
We really do need more modern approaches in Finland. The amount of people watching broadcasts directly is getting smaller and smaller. And the sirens are not loud enough to be heard indoors in many places. So push notifications to cell phones (without a specific app installed!) and integration to streaming services would probably be very helpful.
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This is only a test at *national* level.
Tests happen regularly, just not for the whole country at once.
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Even though my view of the Germans always being very systematic has already been challenged
You should try working there. I had a high view of German engineering until I experienced it, and I'm not just talking about the rapidly declining quality of their cars.
NL also test the sirens monthly, and the push notification system every couple of months.
In other words... (Score:2)
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So imagine testing monthly at a regular time.
We actually had a near miss at a refinery I worked at. HF leak at 11:45am on a Friday afternoon. The sirens went off and we all just thought, oh lunchtime. At one point someone noted that the siren was 15min early, and then the radios lit up with a broadcast on all channels telling us to get our arses out the unit the evacuation alarm is real.
Unreliable (Score:2)
The civil defense systems are tested every month in the Netherlands and they have included push notifications for years. Usually only a fraction of phones receive them. It's totally unreliable. Unfortunately the wise powers that be have already decided to do away with the sirens entirely and make the GSM-based system the default...