We interrupt this broadcast . . .

By Daniel Briere, Network World, 04/04/05

Believe it or not, the "War of the Worlds" hit Connecticut on Feb. 1. The state was being invaded, and all residents were told to evacuate. Think I'm kidding? OK, the alien invasion part is not true, but on Feb. 1, Connecticut residents were indeed told by broadcast to flee the state immediately.

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You probably won't be surprised to hear that the alert was a mistake made by someone tasked with performing the weekly test of the emergency broadcast system. State emergency management officials say an employee pressed the wrong button. Instead of hearing a test of the emergency alert system, midday television viewers and radio listeners were told that the state was being evacuated: "Civil authorities have issued an immediate evacuation order for all of Connecticut, beginning at 2:10 p.m. and ending at 3:10 p.m." Glad they gave us an hour to get the heck out of here. (It takes me an hour just to get to the nearest mall, but that's another story.)

The funnier (sadder) aspect of this incident is that, in a state of 3.5 million people, no one really took the alert seriously. In fact, hardly anyone heard about it until the 5 p.m. news. Because the alert went over the radio and TV at midday, its reach was limited to those watching TV or listening to the radio at the time. I don't have the statistics handy, but I'll wager that only a small portion of the state is on air at 2:10 p.m.

So if you are in the state's Office of Emergency Management in Hartford and you think you just scared the heck out of the citizenry, in this age of Skype, Gigabit switching and fiber-optic lines, how do you correct the situation? Officials sent out a fax to every police department in the state, informing them of the false alarm. Well, now I'm going to check my fax machine a little more often!

The fact that this incident happened in the first place is stupid, but the fact that we're relying only on TV and radio broadcasts is even worse. What we really need is an approach that is built around the way we communicate in the 21st century.