Memo To City: Stop With The Late-Night Emergency Alerts
So there I was, Monday night, sleeping peacefully when my phone let out an ear-splitting electronic howl designed to rouse anyone foolish enough to have forgotten to silence their phone.
Adrenaline surged. Tornado? Tsunami? Serial killer on the loose?
I grabbed my phone, heart pounding, and saw this:
I don’t want to sound callous. I understand that a wandering dementia patient needs to be found and taken to safety. But what, exactly, did the city expect me to do with this information?
Leap out of bed and lead a pajama-clad posse to scour the neighborhood for a missing man? Station myself at the front window with binoculars? Set up a command post in the driveway?
The man was about 10 miles away. I’d been asleep for nearly two hours. And I had a 4 a.m. date with my alarm clock.
I muttered a few choice words, prayed for the man’s safe return, rolled over and tried to calm my racing heart. I value public safety. I really do. But I also value my sleep and I wasn’t about to sacrifice what remained of it for a search party I hadn’t volunteered to join.
This wasn’t the first time City Hall apparently confused a public announcement with a full-blown emergency. Remember April 17, 2014? At about 2:30 a.m., some 100,000 Virginia Beach residents - including me - were jolted awake by robocalls informing us that the 500 block of Sandbridge Road had reopened.
Yes, you read that correctly. A rural road had reopened.
The city blamed a malfunctioning “reverse 911” system that mistakenly called tens of thousands of people, including nursing home residents and hospital patients instead of residents in the immediate area.
Nothing says urgent public safety information like waking a nursing home at 2:30 in the morning to announce that traffic can once again flow freely 25 miles away on Sandbridge Road.
Look, Amber Alerts serve a vital purpose. Those first minutes after a child’s abduction can be crucial and alerting people who are out and about can help bring a child home safely.
But a phone screaming at me in the middle of the night about a missing adult more than 10 miles away? What am I supposed to do, put on my slippers and patrol the streets? I’m not a deputy. I’m not a bloodhound. And at that hour, I’m barely a functioning mammal.
The good news: According to reports, the gentleman was found safe and sound. Excellent news. Truly.
We don’t know if he was located by a determined neighborhood watch posse or he simply wandered back on his own.
I’m glad this tale has a happy ending. No thanks to me.
On Tuesday, I did what I should have done in 2014: Turned off all emergency notifications on my phone.
If the city ever needs me to help find a missing person at 11 p.m., it will have to do it the old-fashioned way: gently knock on my door and hand me a latte.
