I was headed across campus at 1 to have lunch with my wife. The emergency alert system suddenly activates:<\/p>\n Evacuate Grand Forks, Evacuate Grand Forks, you will be given further instructions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Strange I thought. I have actually evacuated once, but that happened in the middle of the night because of a flood. What could this be? We seem an unlikely target for some kind of military action. Not exactly a high value target.<\/p>\n Two possibilities seemed most likely; 1) students from a rival institution had hacked the system possibly related to the potato bowl this weekend (yes, we have a potato bowl), 2) an ammonia tanker in the rail yard had ruptured.<\/p>\n It occurred to me that we were playing a team from the west coast with which we have little history so hacking the system reserved for emergencies seemed something you would save for a rival. The ammonia thing seemed a possibility so I searched for the instructions that were promised. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.<\/p>\n I decided to have lunch.<\/p>\n The explanation came 40 minutes later.<\/p>\n The emergency message asking people to evacuate Grand Forks should was intended to be a siren tone test only. A siren-only test is sounded the first Wednesday of each month at 1 p.m. \u00a0The Emergency Management Office apologizes for any inconvenience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You can tell the person writing this announcement was excited. Now, aside from thinking too many people had to be consulted before someone bothered to explain, I am fascinated by this image I now have of the preprogrammed emergency box.<\/p>\n What do you think?<\/p>\n Button one \u2013 this is a test<\/p>\n Button two \u2013 evacuate Grand Forks<\/p>\n Button three \u2013 head for the basement<\/p>\n Button four \u2013 head for higher ground<\/p>\n Do you think that in an emergency someone might issue a confusing message or not know what to say? Hence, all emergency messages had to be carefully worded and preprogrammed.<\/p>\n I now think they need a button with the message \u201cWhoops \u2013 my bad. Never mind!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In response to the scary alert that was erroneously posted in Hawaii, I am reposting this post from 2012. I am in no\u00a0way implying these events are equivalent or that the event in Hawaii had the potential to generate more … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/alert.jpg\" "\\"alert\\"")
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