Alarmed by the alarm: people react to ‘severe alert’ on phones with message on UK wildfires

Many complained online that piercingly loud tone was ‘overreach’ while others lamented lack of action on decarbonisation On Friday at 7pm, Thérèse Coffey was nine miles away from a nuclear power station when her phone made a loud, piercing and very worrying sound: it was a “severe” emergency alert. “Was expecting [a] much more specific alert, not a generic message on wildfires,” the former Tory cabinet minister said on X. She wasn’t alone in being alarmed by the alarm sent to phones in England and Wales. In the aftermath, thousands of social media users expressed their shock at alert. Some shared funny memes and others lamented what they viewed as lack of government action on decarbonisation. Academic John Ritzema called it a “massive overreach” and said the alert system should be “meant to be for ‘drop everything and prepare for something terrible’ situations”, something Coffey echoed, saying alerts should not become commonplace to avoid “Peter cries wolf situations”...