Posted on 05/10/2011 10:19:00 AM PDT by shanevanderhart
Emergency officials will soon be able to blast critical alerts to anyone with a cell phone in a certain section of the city.
If Times Square needs to be evacuated because of a bomb threat or if a hurricane is bearing down on Queens, warnings will be bounced from cell towers.
"Making sure that [people] get useful and life-saving information, quickly and easily, right on their mobile phones, will help more people get out of harm's way when a threat exists," said Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator W. Craig Fugate.
The system - called PLAN or Personal Localized Alerting Network - uses cell phone towers to send messages to everyone currently in a certain area, regardless of whether they're visiting from out of town or have a phone registered elsewhere. People won't have to register in advance to receive the alerts.
The messages, including urgent blasts from the President, information on imminent threats and Amber Alerts about missing children, will supercede all other phone traffic so they won't be stalled or delayed.
FEMA's Fugate and Federal Communications Commissioner Chair Julius Genachowski plan to announce the new system at the World Trade Center site Tuesday in a press conference with Mayor Bloomberg and top phone company execs.
They system is expected to be up and running in New York and Washington by the end of the year - months before the rest of the country.
Mayor Bloomberg called the alerts a "quantum leap forward in using technology to help keep people safe."
Wonder if the calls will cut into a persons minutes.
We now have this at the university where I work.
“A suspicious person has been reported near...”
“Please report any suspicious people to...” (the university police are union and are all out there writing tickets)
“We believe the suspicious person MAY have left the university; however, we will continue to keep you informed” (great...I don’t work on that campus anyway)
“blah”
“blah”
“blah”
The university is not interested in protecting students, or faculty, or visitors, but rather in protecting themselves (that is the administrators).
This is what happens when the lawyers convince the administration (of which we have too many already) to be petrified of lawsuits.
Anyway, getting 3-4-5 messages each time this happens is a royal pain in the *ss.
We also know that Bloomberg doesn’t know what quantum means, the dummy.
Big Gubamint Spam..
and there is no Opt Out.
Sure there is. Flush the cellphone down a toilet.
So, since terrorists don’t have cell phones the populace would have the advantage of advance warn...wait a minute!
Whoopee.
They can’t even puff on a tasty Maduro in the open air of Manhattan.
Great points.
Ah you still read about that either here or on your RSS or Twitter feed right?
Mommy and daddy government will now be able to give their charges safety warnings.
These people are insane. How has that freak Bloomberg lasted so long?
Thanks. It just bothers me that, now, instead of turning on the news and figuring out things by themselves, they will rely on a govn’t text to warn them about things. What happens when the texts dont’ go out? This type of thing just breeds reliance on objects that can fail. How many of today’s kids/teens, and even adults, would absolutely fall apart if they lost an electronic device (TV, phone, internet). Sure they are convienent, but we shouldn’t rely on them to the point that some do now-a-days.
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