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Idea vs. Ego
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If there was a nuclear missle attack at 3 in the morning then most people would sleep right through their demise. If we had a system that would phone everyone in the nation at the same time and play a warning message then millions would be saved.
There might already be a system like this in place
that we don't know about. It could be used for tornado warnings and other disasters too.
Emergency Alert System receiver, $56 US
http://www.waovam.com/eas.htm
This receives those modem-like tones on the Emergency Alert broadcasts on USA radio stations, and turns it into a home signal. [krelnik, Oct 04 2004]
ACCOLC
http://www.doh.gov..../refdocs/accolc.doc
Cell overload control [oneoffdave, Oct 04 2004]
[stormo]'s link as a link
http://thomas.loc.g...query/z?c108:S.118:
[krelnik, Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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Could any nation's telecoms network sustain a simultaneous every-number call? |
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In the UK, British Telecom (to the stunned amazement of 57 milion people) have managed to impement such a system for distributing flood warnings, at the behest of the Environment Agency/National Rivers Authority. I undersatnd that it is acceptably effective. I'm not sure whether it uses a special ring pattern, or tries repeatedly to dial up and give a recorded message. It can be targeted on an area (postcode) basis. |
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In BT's case it delivers a message "Due to excessive use, the phone network is about to - " |
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How would I know it's not a prank call? Wouldn't work. |
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so how much warning do we get? what are we supposed to do? time to make a cup of tea? oh leave me in bed thanks. |
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Every call I make is a disaster. |
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What happened to CD sirens? (for those of you not of the US, or those in the US under about age 50 or so, CD used to mean "Civil Defense") |
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If they want to talk to me, they can damn well put a request in writing. They have my address. |
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I suppose watching children's television is one way of spending your last few minutes on god's earth. |
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// [lurch] I thought I was the only one who remembered that CD meant something besides *compact disk*. // |
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Certificate of Deposit, isn't it? |
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might missle you by a mile |
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But those were just blissmissiles. |
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<Everyone knows you can outrun a nuclear missile if you know that it's coming.>
No, but you can start fucking. |
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The point is that real estate costs fall to where I can afford some. |
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Baked by the Federal Government in the US. The "Emergency Alert System" (formerly the Emergency Broadcast System) uses broadcast radio stations to automatically relay nation emergency signals to the public. You can hear these directly if you are listening to the radio or watching TV, but there are also receivers that are designed to auto-detect the digital portion of the signal (the modem like tones you hear when they do the "this is a test" thing) and alert you to it even if your radio is off. See link. |
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I will admit the idea has some logistical flaws. I'd rather know than not know though. |
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//so how much warning do we get? what are we supposed to do? time to make a cup of tea? oh leave me in bed thanks.// |
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Hopefully 15 or 20 minutes of warning. I think I remember hearing that if the (Former) Soviet Union were to launch an attack, it would take 30 minutes for the ICBMs to begin hitting. |
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// Everyone knows you can outrun a nuclear missile if you know that it's coming.. // |
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I live 7 miles from a major city. I'd like to have a 20 minute heads up on an attack, then maybe i'd be able to get 20 miles away from a major city. |
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We get the BT flood warning here and it keeps trying unitl it gets a real person, not a recording. Then it tells me that my house has been washed away. |
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BT amazed me, today. this morning I had no phone connection. I reported the fault at work and was told to do some DIY tricks to reset it because "it costs £50 call-out charge for an engineer". Tonight I get a very nice BT lady asking if everything was now OK. I take back everything I have ever complained about. |
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krelnik - not baked by EAS, because EAS does not use the existing phone system. |
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Baked by newly proposed legislation to congress:
(link above) |
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"Everyone in the nation or area is phoned with a message during a dire emergency" - yeah, like what? |
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"Duck!" ?
"Kiss your sweet ass goodbye!" ? |
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On a sober note, I will remind you that during the WTC emergency, both the regular and cell phone systems were jammed, rendering the phones all but useless. Oddly enough, Internet messaging worked fine (as some of you may recall). |
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In the UK The Cabinet Office or Police Commander can restrict access to the cell phone system to authorised users in case of emergency [link]. This calling system might mean that ACCOLC is invoked more often. |
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I've just always assumed that in the event of impending nuclear doom, everyone would want to start shagging like crazy before they blow up. Am I wrong? |
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[stormo] Well I meant baked in the sense that the goal had been achieved. Using radio has significant advantages, since the telephone system has large amounts of infrastructure that could already have been destroyed by the very disaster one is warning about. (Note DrCurry's anno). Radio is broadcast simultaneously to everyone, and therefore gets the word out faster---phone calls would take far, far longer. (Especially since no phone system is designed to handle the case of everyone being on the phone at once). |
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Oh, and please use the [link] function for links. |
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