Last updated April 12, 2019
Emergency managers in Florida in the United State are calling for an emergency alert system for used cell phones. With hurricane season well underway in the state, it is only a matter of time before a life threatening storm hits, and many believe that the power to alert the public of the danger via their new or old cell phones is by far the best way to give people immediate information about any such crises.
“This thing needs to be intrusive,” reckons the director of Emergency Management in Polk County, Peter McNally. “It needs to get to people where they are, and the way to do that as well as anything else is through the cell phones.” McNally is not the only person who thinks so, with him and three other county emergency directors in the state of Florida having already taken part in a pilot scheme to do just that. The program used an emergency alert system that was actually capable of being tailored to the specific individuals who are being sent the warning on their cell phone.
“It’s a one way broadcast to the devices that are in the field in a geographic area period,” notes the coordinator of Emergency Management for Pasco County, Jim “JJ” Johnston. “It’s that simple.”
Johnson is now leading the charge to try to convince state officials to go ahead with a statewide cell phone emergency alert system.