Sorry Amber

Early in the morning Monday as I lay there sound asleep there was domestic drama radiating from Florida. Then at 2:30 AM Wild West Hogs (yes, he had legally changed his name) had been spotted in Tennessee.

Our phones went off simultaneously, #ERMAGERD ALARM!!!!!!! it was the same alarm as a berking tornado. Tiger Mom and I both roll over, silence our alrms , check to see what we need to do (seek shelter, get our guns, prepare for zombie apocalypse). Nope, it's a dude in a car with a little girl 300 miles away. Go back to sleep, or at least try to through the instant adrenalin hit the alarm had given us.

30 minutes later: IT berkeleyING GOES OFF AGAIN!! Again scrabble for the phones. Again wake up enough to see what action we need to take (update, he's driving a specific car). Again, try to get back to sleep.

Monday is now groggier than usual for 30 million or so people. And the Amber Alert system has cried wolf one to many times, I found the settings in our phones (way down at the bottom of notifications under the apps you never use) and turned it off. Sorry it has to be this way but it's a big world out there and I can't be woken up for every one of its crises.

Yep, I have disabled these alarms as well. I know that I should be thinking about the children, but it's berkeleying 3:00am.

Yeah, I felt like a bad person doing it, but I Turned them off too. It the alarm was more relevant, i.e. In the same state, I might be more interested.

when they first started to do those over the cell network, I was running a comedy show and in the middle of it.. EVERYONE's phone in the theatre went off with the alert.

So if we say, for the sake of argument that 30 million people got the alert Monday AM and 29 million of them were asleep. Did 20+ million of those turn off that alarm the next morning, never to hear about the next alert?

That's the worst part of this, the authorities misused the system and now the system is weaker and less effective than it had been.

TLDR: crying wolf is bad

It's just like car alarms. Who hears a car alarm these days and thinks, "Whoa, someone might be breaking into a car" instead of "Dumbass neighbor set off his car alarm again"?

I just turn "airplane mode" on whenever it is mission critical that I get some sleep. I still get the Amber alerts whenever I get up, and I don't get disturbed by calls/texts/notifications that won't receive attention until I'm up anyway.

The phone is only live 24/7 whenever there's some sort of pending family emergency.

I've heard those alerts so damn many times between amber, people losing their old folks, storms, etc, it hardly even registers anymore. The only time I was mildly amused was when one came up for a silver nissan versa....as swmbo was driving home in hers.

Here in Florida those alarms started going off just after the hurricane had started to clear. I heard them and thought WTF--- is this thing doing a U-Turn and coming back at us? Nope--- a little girl abducted hundreds of miles away. It was a shock to us with nerves already frazzled.

Finding lost children is good---- annoying people into turning off the warning system is not.

I shut them off as well. Same story as everyone else, basically. If I could get it as a text message, it would be great. Setting off an alarm on my phone? No thanks.

Amber alerts have made my wife a fearful person, and made my life significantly less happy.

Maybe I'll be looking through her phone to turn them off.

Just till its your kid...

mndsm wrote: I've heard those alerts so damn many times between amber, people losing their old folks, storms, etc, it hardly even registers anymore. The only time I was mildly amused was when one came up for a silver nissan versa....as swmbo was driving home in hers.

I'm getting tired of the Weather Channel's warnings for storms. Most of them are loud and just for rain or fog. Duh, I can live with that.

It's too bad, as it's a good concept, if used better.

Appleseed wrote: Just till its your kid...

I'm pretty sure I will know if it is my kid.

Appleseed wrote: Just till its your kid...

No one is questioning the use of the system. The signs and stuff, and messages, save lives. But when you set off a million cell phones at the same time with the world is berkeleyed noise, it winds people up. Like was said...a text message or something less deadly, it would work better.

If your child was missing, wouldn't you want a million wound up people?

Appleseed wrote: Just till its your kid...

Well, then, I probably wouldn't need to be notified.

So I was the only person who got up and looked for her? She was not in my bathroom or my refrigerator.

Appleseed wrote: If your child was missing, wouldn't you want a million wound up people?

The inconvenience of being woken up is well worth the potential finding of a kidnapped child to me. Kidnappers usually don't stick close to where they took the kid from, so of course they're going to cast a wide net.

So many things to be upset about, but this isn't one of them.

We were driving north on I-57 a couple months ago when one went off, looking for a black Buick Enclave leaving Vandalia, IL. Just then I looked up to see a black(or possibly dark blue/grey - it was in silhouette) Enclave heading southbound, and the Vandalia exit was about a mile up the road. I called 911, the operator seemed puzzled by my call and I got the impression she had no idea an Amber Alert had been issued, but I gave her the message about the vehicle. No idea if it was anything more than a coincidence, but I knew if had been one of our kids in a similar situation I'd sure hope someone else would do the same.

But yeah, those alerts scare the E36 M3 out of me whenever they go off.

Appleseed wrote: If your child was missing, wouldn't you want a million wound up people?

WouND up people make stupid decisions. People properly notified make wise decisions. I'm not sure that using a tornado siren noise is the right answer.

NEALSMO wrote:

Appleseed wrote: If your child was missing, wouldn't you want a million wound up people?

The inconvenience of being woken up is well worth the potential finding of a kidnapped child to me. Kidnappers usually don't stick close to where they took the kid from, so of course they're going to cast a wide net. So many things to be upset about, but this isn't one of them.

As long as it's used responsibly. You don't want them to become so frequent and irritating that people turn them off or ignore them.

And why haven't we had anyone say "This is why I don't have one of them new-fangled cotton-pickin' cell phones, anyhow!" Usually there's a couple of them by now.

Tom_Spangler wrote:

NEALSMO wrote:

Appleseed wrote: If your child was missing, wouldn't you want a million wound up people?

The inconvenience of being woken up is well worth the potential finding of a kidnapped child to me. Kidnappers usually don't stick close to where they took the kid from, so of course they're going to cast a wide net. So many things to be upset about, but this isn't one of them.

As long as it's used responsibly. You don't want them to become so frequent and irritating that people turn them off or ignore them. And why haven't we had anyone say "This is why I don't have one of them new-fangled cotton-pickin' cell phones, anyhow!" Usually there's a couple of them by now.

Either they died or went total luddite and forgot Internet too.

DrBoost wrote: Yeah, I felt like a bad person doing it, but I Turned them off too. It the alarm was more relevant, i.e. In the same state, I might be more interested.

There was the Amber Alert earlier this year from Tennessee or Georgia or something, and it turned out the guy was caught in Morrow County, OH because the guy behind him on I-71 had his radio on.

So, yeah annoying, but it does work...

In reply to Knurled:

They nailed some creep a week or 2 ago in Chicago because a woman recognized the car and the person from an Amber Alert. It does work.

EDIT: I know you guys aren't questioning the validity of the Amber Alert, just the delivery method.