Brits have been left scratching their heads after the national alert system failed to warn them of an, albeit, hypothetical risk to life.
87 million phones were supposed to vibrate, play a loud noise and provide a jump scare for an entire nation at 3pm on Sunday.
The government said it plans to use the system to issue real warnings, such as in severe weather or if there is a disaster that poses a severe danger to life.
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But some Brits have complained they weren’t notified, which could be a bit of a problem in a real-life Doomsday scenario.
Teacher Katie Lathan said her alarm failed to go off on her Android phone. She told Metro: ‘Well I guess I’m out. No-one thinks to tell me anything any more.’
Austin Wellbelove, told Metro: ‘I received the message on my phone but there was no sound or vibration. My iPhone was set to silent, which was not overridden. I really hope these are very isolated incidents, the government should be working with technology partners to identify issues with the alert system well in advance of a nationwide test.’
Lucy Wright-Perkins was concerned her phone didn’t go off at all.
She told Metro: ‘The alert didn’t go off on my phone today. Makes me worry that it will fail in a real emergency.’
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Sean Kennedy, posted on X: ‘Well, this emergency alert system is great. My phone is on Do Not Disturb and it didn’t go off. So if there’s some big emergency, an impending nuclear attack, anyone who’s in a meeting or taking a nap wouldn’t get notified. What a waste of time.’
Blaize Moisley, from North Shropshire, found it tough to take that the government seemingly valued their partner’s life more than their own.
‘He got the alert but I didn’t.
‘My partner has a Google phone and is with EE. His alert went off at exactly 3pm for the expected time and format, whereas I was in another room just a bit startled.
‘I usually hate the alerts, but they are meant to be a really good system for anything dangerous to life and severe disruptions.
‘I got the one a few years back and it worked fine, so it was a bit surprising that it seems like more people didn’t get it this time despite in theory, the system should be more improved.’
Adele Green, emailed in to say: ‘My husband and I each have fairly new mobiles plus a tablet and we failed to receive any government alert on any of these devices. In fact, we were watching the clock, awaiting the siren.
‘This happened to us last time as well.’
But the Metro‘s own SEO reporter Jack Slater had a completely different experience. ‘I had the opposite problem – I got the alert three times. Sir Keir must really want me to survive.’
When was the last emergency alert in the UK?
The alert system has been used five times before in real emergencies, in smaller areas of the country facing a threat.
In total, it has been sent to around 10 million separate phones in genuine ‘danger to life’ situations since the system was introduced.
When an unexploded WW2 bomb was found in Plymouth, around 50,000 phones were sent an alert about needing to evacuate.
Warnings were also sent to 15,000 phones during severe flooding in Cumbria last year, and to to 10,000 phones in Leicestershire, which faced severe floods in January.
The most alerts sent so far were during Storm Darragh and Storm Eowyn, where 3.4 million and 4.5 million alerts respectively were sent to people in their paths.