# National emergency test on November 9

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-emergency-test-on-november-9/600498>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 23, 2011, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-emergency-test-on-november-9/600498 "2011-10-23T02:15:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-emergency-test-on-november-9/600498/21 "2011-10-25T22:21:10Z")

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> [@smoke](#):
>
> I totally get that, and I know how crazy it sounds. But I guess I’m wondering, ifthe Federal Govt _could_ require ISPs to route all traffic to an EAS under certain conditions. Would that be possible, if not probable?

OK, they could do that and break any use of the Internet that is not the Web. I mean, hotels and coffee shops do it until you’ve officially signed up for their WiFi, so your ISP could, in theory, do it.

The obvious problem is that it could easily cause problems even worse than someone not being properly alerted to an impending disaster.

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**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\
**Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-emergency-test-on-november-9/600498/22 "2011-10-26T15:16:07Z")

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> [@carlotta](#):
>
> I was once in a grocery store where the fire alarm went off. Since everyone in the store, like me, grew up hearing fire alarms that were only drills absolutely no one evacuated the store.

The fire alarm went off in the building where I work last week and everyone ignored it until someone came around telling everyone to get out. We didn’t even know it was the fire alarm, let alone know that it wasn’t a test. The only siren I heard was coming from the server room, and I assumed it was some sort of alert that something had gone wrong with something in there, requiring attention. You could only hear the sirens from certain parts of the building. Many of the sirens didn’t go off at all.

AFAIK nobody was ever told what the reason was that the alarm went off in the first place, other than being told that it was NOT a test. We all just milled around outside for about 10 minutes chatting while three different campus police cars came and officers went inside… eventually we were told we could go back in.

I generally ignore alarms that I hear, because I assume they’re drills or that they don’t apply to me. Bad habit, I know.

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