I’m assuming I got it because I signed up for news alerts from a local TV station. But it was odd.
First up at the top of the phone was a little red triangle icon which I hadn’t seen before. The message itself was cryptic. It said “Amber Alert. Green Bay Kia …” followed by what I presume was a license plate number. No mention of what of anyone’s names, or what anyone was being sought for.
A few minutes later there I got an news alert from the TV station itself, fleshing out some more detail, including a picture and the name of a missing child, and the name of the adult who is suspected of taking him. Their last names didn’t match, so it might or might not be an outright kidnapping, or some kind of parental/custodial dispute carried too far. That was another detail not released.
Those types of alerts default to ON, but you can turn them off if you want to. It’s in settings somewhere on your phone.
I’d keep mine on if the powers that be could use a little more discretion on issuing these. 3AM is not a good time to make my phone blare that awful sound.
With Verizon, I know they keep those settings in a separate default app called “Emergency Alerts” where you can customize what kind of alerts you receive. They are all on by default as these are state police alerts for public safety. Presidential alerts cannot be turned off. Those would only be used in extreme national crisis, anyway.
It may vary by phone and provider–do a google search for the phone type and “Disabling Amber Alerts” and you should get hits.
Wherever it is, there should be three settings, one for Amber Alerts, one for severe weather notifications, and one for Presidential Alerts that you won’t be able to disable (the end of the world will be announced via text message)
We got one the other day, Some crooks stole a car, not realizing there were kids inside. Apparently the perps discovered them pretty quickly so they parked the car in a drug store parking lot just ten blocks from where they stole it and took off. Someone passing by, who had also gotten the amber alert on their phone, spotted the car and called the cops. The kids were fine and were soon back with their parents.
It’s good to know that this system really can reunite families. Yeah, that noise can be startling and annoying, but it sure catches your attention. I do wish they’d give out more details, though.
I got one this morning, something about a 17 year old in Orange County (mid-Florida, I’m in the north). Well, I hope it turns out okay, whatever it is. I think it’s pretty great that so many people can be notified and maybe do something to avert disasters.
Why would you be “pissed as fuck?” Is a random noise on your phone really that big of a deal? Especially considering it’s about helping a missing child?
There was one here last week, a nineteen year old non-custodial father took his six month old baby son and ran off. Dumb bastard was found within the hour of the alert going out. He’d gone to his mother’s house, and when he heard about the Amber Alert he turned himself in by calling 911.