[sf-lug] ability for the town to put out a really loud (was: Why I'm not a huge Comcast fan (2015 incident))

[Michael Paoli]

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: Re: [sf-lug] Why I'm not a huge Comcast fan (2015 incident)
> Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 00:02:55 -0700

> that's a chance you don't get without a landline.  And what a town like
> that _really_ needed was ability for the town to put out a really loud
> voice alert from a tall tower -- something that Menlo Park next door to
> us now has following the Camp Fire.

Yes, those can be very good ... particularly combined with a siren or the
like - such as before announcement and at end and periodically thereafter
with announcement.  Proper siren sounds (often mixed with white nose)
can often be heard clearly much farther (or over more noise) compared to
voice ... so the siren bit can be a very effective "heads up, pay attention!",
even if folks might not quite make out the voice (or might mistake it for
some other background voice or noise).  That's one of multiple reasons, why,
for example, the emergency broadcast stuff is preceded by a set of alert
tone signals (and concluded with a similar sounding but different pattern
end-of-alert message tone signals).

So ... with such lead-in, folks are more likely to (try to) pay attention
to voice announcements, and also, if they can't quite (or marginally) make
out the voice bits, at least have a head's up and might want to try and
determine (or make reasonably educated guess) as to what's up.

Also helps to have such things reasonably managed.  If they send out false
alerts - particularly with any regularity - they quickly lose
trust/reliability.  E.g. HI.US. (or portion(s) thereof) ...
send out a warning of imminent nuclear attack ... first time, taken as
reasonable probability of credible ... blow that with a fake alert, and
next time such alert(s) go out (especially after other false ones in
meantime), credibility goes way down.
And you think alarm fatigue syndrome is bad with folks that are (supposed
to be) professionally responding and reacting to those (and especially too
many of 'em) ... for the general public, I believe the effectiveness of
such alarms if over-used or false alerts, etc. - the effectiveness drops of
quite quickly.  (How many people still jump to pay attention to Amber
alerts?  How many now after both false alerts, and many/most alerts may
often not have actionable information for many/most of the recipients?  How
many just disable those alerts, or mostly ignore them?).
Heck, ... POTUS alerts?  Knowing who POTUS currently is I may be highly
unlikely to pay serious attention to any such alerts.
Credibility and reliability of source matters.

So ... siren/loudspeaker thing - can be very effective getting attention of
high percentage of folks within sufficiently close range - e.g. very good
for tsunami warning (for at least certain locations/geographies) ...
many folks would ignore alerts coming in by (mobile or landline) phones ...
especially if they're not expecting the likelyhood of an important
notification.  Robocalls (especially unwanted), faked CNID, etc. also reduce
the effectiveness of important phone notifications.