People have been sharing their confusion after receiving the Government’s emergency test alert in the middle of the night, with one woman saying her phone ‘scared the life out of her’ when it woke her up at 2.30am today (April 24).
Phones across the country rang out with a siren at around 3pm as part of a government trial of the new national alert system, which will be used to get in touch with residents in cases of life-threatening emergencies, such as floods or wildfires.
Whilst most phones went off at the correct time, or at least a minute before or after, some reported not receiving the alert altogether leading to confusion. Mobile provider Three said it was working with the Government to understand why many of its customers did not receive the message.
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But it is emerging today that others, who did get the message as planned, have also ended up getting a second alert this morning. Victoria Brimage, from Crosby in Liverpool, said the alert went off on her phone at 2.37am this morning (April 24).
“I nearly had a heart attack - I jumped out of my skin,” Victoria told the M.E.N on receiving the message. “I got the alert yesterday that everyone got and then again this morning. It was the same noise, same message. Honestly, I didn’t go back to sleep afterwards because it scared me.
“I got such a fright, I was in complete shock. I have no idea how it happened, I got myself in a state and tried to look online to see if it happened to anyone else but I couldn’t find anything.
“I started to think I was imagining it, but I’d taken a screenshot on my phone. To get that when you’re in a deep sleep and not expecting it, and then not be able to find any information, it was an awful experience.
“It was just such a fright. I wasn’t expecting it.”
Stacy Jackson said her phone went off at 7.30am today whilst she was driving to work. She too received the alert yesterday at 3pm as intended.
“It made me jump as my phone was on my dashboard,” she explained. “I doubt I would have crashed but it definitely made me jump.”
Both Victoria and Stacy are Vodafone customers, but it is believed that a small number of devices received more than one alert due to cellular masts continuing to be broadcast after the end of the test.
Another person reported to the M.E.N they had received the alert at 1pm this afternoon (April 14), and hadn’t received the original message on Sunday.
The Government said its officials are in the early stages of analysing the results of the trial run. A UK Government spokesperson said: “We have effectively completed the test of the UK-wide Emergency Alerts system, the biggest public communications exercise of its kind ever done.
“We are working with mobile network operators to review the outcome and any lessons learned.”
Vodafone has also been approached by the M.E.N for more information.
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