Last night I was enjoying channel-surfing around 7 PM when the gut-clenching drone of the Emergency Broadcast System overrode the TV sound.
A banner appeared over the top of the screen, and a voice declared “The authorities have declared a Civil Emergency for this area. Turn to Channel [TWENTY FOUR] for more details”.
Oh, shit. Terrorist strike. Volcano eruption. Earthquake and tsunami.
I thought about the unfinished basket of bottled water and canned food in the laundry room, and the pistol and fire extinguisher I hadn’t tested in years.
Channel 24 had a bunch of garbled text on it, and the same voiceover. The image was still showing minutes of a City Council meeting.
When the text finally cleared into something readable, the banner disappeared from the other channels and Channel 24 told us that young Justin Quintero, age 8, and his infant brother Jonah Quintero, had been abducted by their own mother.
I read up on this one today; clearly the lady is unstable and suicidal and dangerous to herself. The police have pictures, names, license plate numbers, and a probably location.
This might be a great reason to put out an APB to the affected police departments.
But what the Alert last night didn’t mention is that this happened in Salem, Oregon. This emergency alert scared the crap out of me here in Seattle, WA.
I can’t figure out how a simple abduction 220 miles away turned into a civil emergency warning in a town that the suspect can’t get to for 4 hours.
I know that this Forum has discussed the utility of Amber Alerts before, but has anyone else seen one that escalated so that it used the Emergency Broadcast System ?