Many Americans were puzzled when they had a Civil emergency message shown on their television on Sunday, the message showed for a brief time on TV’s in Akron and the surrounding six counties at around 10PM. This electronic message showed on all televisions in those areas and a spokesman for Time Warner said they have “no control over emergency messages”.
Ohio.com are reporting that this a Civil Emergency Message was traced to a dispatcher in Tuscarawas County and that they were trying to issue an amber alert for a child that went missing. Although this message sent out was the wrong one and could have left some people in a panic, it’s good to see this ability in place for missing children especially after events such as Madeleine McCann going missing.
We have since heard that the message sent out was the wrong one and its being reported that the child was found. Did you see this Civil Emergency Message and if so what did you make of it?
Do you think television stations should have a little more control over what is shown or should they still be bypassed when it’s an emergency?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Emerge // Jun 16, 2008 at 11:47 am
i think Tv stations should have more control and they should be more authentic before triggering a false alarm like this.
2 katie // Jun 16, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I think it is wonderful that such quick notification could result in a missing child being found speedily. This wasn’t a false alarm, a child was indeed missing. I am all for it, and wish the same system was in place in United Kingdom. Please keep looking for Madeleine McCann worldwide. If we had this amber alert system, maybe she would be at home with her family now.
3 Stella Jennings // Jun 17, 2008 at 7:33 am
I think that all countries should have the same system in place as we do not know where these kids are. When something like this is reported the police should have a system to contact the TV stations and broadcast the missing childs photograph and all details pertaining to the child and the dissapprearance.
I would think that this would alert more people and make them more vigilant to look out for these children, waiting to read about it in the Newspaper is usually too late and by that time the kids have been moved usually never to be found.
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