Emergency alerts when traveling

I never realised I had these enabled, till we were in Kefalonia last summer and got a wildfire alert (luckily we were all safe and didn't have to take any action, tho we did see emergency service helicopters going to collect water from the ocean to drop on the fire). Funnily enough we also experienced several small earthquakes while there but these are so common they don't bother to send alerts.

Cat VH - I have a separate app for wildfire alerts as those are becoming more and more frequent out here. My friend was in Hawaii (last year, I think) when they got the tsunami alert following an earthquake in Asia and had to evacuate their beach front AirBnB but luckily nothing happened.

Yes, I have alerts enabled. It’s gone off a few times for tornado warnings. I am fairly certain that these types of alerts are only sent to phones in the area affected; it makes no difference where your “home” service area is.

My brother and his wife were driving from Wyoming back home to NC. They were in Kansas when they got a tornado alert on both their phones; scared them half to death because they didn’t even realize that was a thing. They got off the road and found shelter, and a tornado did pass very close by.

That's exactly how it works, mjh-travel. It is based on phones closer to cell towers in the area for the alert.
That had to be scary for them!

I loaded an app for emergency alerts for my Christmas trip last year. Worked like a charm, but a little too often for my comfort. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tKY26HKYsKoNcJHcnAVA4kbn7hfTTpIW/view?usp=drivesdk. (Test pattern). Nicely done as it determined your location and made suggestions of where to go.

mjh-travel-have your relatives never seen the Wizard of Oz? I'm pretty sure that we all know that they have tornadoes in Kansas!

Cala I spent about 4 years in the Texas panhandle. Before cell phones. The siren mounted on top of the cotton gin would go off, you coukd hear it for miles, and we all ran for the nearest basement. This wasnt often only 3 or 4 times a year. If we needed a reminder why we could go downtown... no buildings. A tornado had leveled the down town about 15 years earlier.

you will get them (mostly tests) in UK - if you have the right version of operating system and a 4/5G connection. It's as though they are covertly selecting who should survive.........

this is done simply based on which mast your phone is pinging off, no signups or apps.

I have an iPhone and it does give me the option to decline Test alerts in the US. Not sure if that applies abroad.

Last year I was on a ferry between Stornoway and Ullapool. A national alert test was supposed to take place at a certain time.

Sure enough, at the precise time, everyone's phone alerted. There must have been over 100 people in the immediate area.

Over the years I've gotten hurricane alerts, earthquake alerts, thunderstorm alerts and even a terrorism alert.

Oh cala, sure they knew Kansas has tornadoes, but they didn’t know that cell phones have VERY LOUD ALERTS to warn that you might be near one! Quite startling.

When we were in Yorkshire last year and driving from York to Whidbey in very heavy rain, we kept getting a very loud buzzing. We had just picked up the rental car that day. Every time we got the buzzing, I was trying to figure out what the problem might be for the car and was checking for indicator lights etc. Given the heavy rain, we really didn't want to stop and get out of the car, and there weren't many places to pull off anyway. It finally occurred to me that the noise was coming from my phone, and they were alerting us to the bad storms--yeah, no kidding.

mjh-travel-tell your famiy that if they ever come to Alabama in the spring, they will likely experience the same thing.