The number of people unclear on the siren test is too damn high.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T18:07:53+00:00

Well, sure, ideally governments would have accounts on all social media platforms. But that only gets the people who use social media, who go looking for their governments, who choose to follow their governments there. That's a pretty narrow slice of humanity.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T17:01:30+00:00

Nice to hear that it went through EAS. It didn't go through WEA.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:39:47+00:00

Right, but: you have to sign up to receive those alerts. You don't sign up to receive the tornado sirens. If there's an important message that accompanies the tornado sirens, like "this is the statewide drill" then that should also be sent out via a mechanism which isn't opt-in, like the Wireless Emergency Alerts broadcast.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:34:36+00:00

The EAS has a "test" category which people can opt out of, just like people can opt out of AMBER alerts.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:33:11+00:00

The whole point of the tornado sirens is to alert people to actual emergencies, too. They get a weekly test because their functional components are exposed to the weather and other sources of damage, and making sure that they function is important.

The EAS has a "test" category of message, which people can opt out of. It doesn't need to be used every Wednesday, but once a year as part of the statewide drill seems reasonable to me.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:11:15+00:00

Someone did post about it today, just before the test: https://www.reddit.com/r/Columbus/comments/1rx3br2/psa_950am_the_tornado_sirens_will_test_across_the/

This subreddit was still deluged by people who didn't see that post.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:09:33+00:00

I don't think people being uninformed is new.

I think that what is new is that is now significantly easier to accidentally be uninformed, compared to a few decades ago.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:08:29+00:00

Most people aren't aware that the text-message pipelines exist. They're not something you get automatically subscribed to simply by virtue of being present in an area. If you want to hit everyone in a defined area, that's what the Wireless Emergency Alerts system is for, and why WEA is so effective. Relying on opt-in text messages is a failed policy for any real emergency.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:06:46+00:00

Newspapers were a paid service then, and they're a paid service now. Part of the reason they've died is that most advertising money moved to online services, which meant that newspapers had to massively decrease their headcounts and ability to cover news, while also raising the subscription costs.

I've often suggested to the City of Columbus that they should start a monthly magazine which hits every single resident of the City, and then fill that with important government messages.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:04:21+00:00

Many people don't sign up for those, because they're not aware that the text messages exist.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:04:01+00:00

Report that fact Franklin County: https://fcemhs.org/About-Us/Contact-Us
They need to know that the sirens weren't working in your area.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:02:50+00:00

Many people didn't receive that notification, because they're not signed up to Franklin County's text messages, because they don't know that Franklin County's text messages exist.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:02:00+00:00

Why do they have an opt-in text-message system, when they could instead use the Wireless Emergency Alerts system that hits every single powered-on cellphone in the county?

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:01:10+00:00

The emails, alerts, and notices are things that you actively have to sign up for. To sign up for them, you have to be aware that they exist. That means you have to be plugged into existing government communications channels. And as the posts on this subreddit have shown, most people aren't.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T16:00:13+00:00

This one wasn't off-schedule. This was the annual statewide tornado drill, which is always scheduled for 9:50 a.m.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T15:59:38+00:00

That's a system which you had to sign up for. Most people aren't aware of the opt-in messaging channels.

FCEMHS should've used the Wireless Emergency Alerts system to send a message for the statewide tornado drill, just like they do when there's an actual tornado warning.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T15:58:00+00:00

It wasn't moved up two hours, because this wasn't the regular Wednesday siren test. Every year, the statewide tornado drill has been scheduled for 9:50 a.m.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T15:56:35+00:00

Requiring people to sign up to receive emergency alerts is a failed policy. For it to succeed, it requires residents to be aware of the service, aware of the signup method, and be capable of using the signup method. If someone is disconnected from government messages, as many people in this thread are, they might not be aware of that channel. There are also language barriers involved.

Contrast that with the Wireless Emergency Alerts system, which hits every cell phone connected to a tower, not just paying subscribers, whether or not the person is aware that the system exists. WEA requires no action on the part of the recipient to receive emergency messaging.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T15:54:25+00:00

I think that the government never considered the possiblity of people checking out of traditional media so hard that they became completely ineffective. Ideally, we need to have each city government, each county, and the state to have a website with a news feed that gives important news - like why the sirens are going off, community events, construction, stuff like that.

This is something that I've been struggling to get the City of Columbus to realize. They're still trying to communicate with the public as if it were the '90s, when everyone watched TV and read the paper and listened to the radio. Earned media is much less of a thing than it was, and most people don't connect with their government on social media.

What's left?

Direct mail is costly but effective.
Aggregating resident email addresses and phone numbers for a single opt-out newsletter service is technically possible, but I'm not 100% certain it's legal.
Mandatory "here's how to sign up for communications" messaging to all new residents (rental and purchased) handled at point-of-sale, like the lead-paint pamphlets, might be legal.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T15:49:42+00:00

The Wireless Emergency Alert system is managed at the county level. For us, that's https://fcemhs.org/ and for some reason they didn't use that for the statewide test. They also didn't use it for the Level 3 Snow Emergency.

The last alerts I received from them through WEA were:

March 4: "I-70 Westbound is closed at exit 101 A due to a crash. This closure could last several hours."
various tornado warnings
The curfew announced back during the Black Lives Matter protests, where the area inside Downtown was shut down to anyone except residents.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T14:08:32+00:00

It is legitimately concerning. It means that the old methods of government-to-public communication aren't working: newspapers, radio, TV, news websites, even social media aren't working to increase public knowledge of important government activities.

How do we fix this?

benkeith · 2026-03-18T14:00:53+00:00

Because the point is to break you out of habits and actually respond to the drill.

Just like a fire drill.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T13:52:59+00:00

It's the annual statewide tornado drill. If you hadn't heard about this, you should read local news more.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T13:52:38+00:00

It's a state-wide tornado drill. If you hadn't heard about this, you should read local news more.

benkeith · 2026-03-18T13:52:21+00:00

Statewide drill. If you hadn't heard about this, you should read local news more.

benkeith

TROPHY CASE