useless amber/silver alerts

[Hagbard Celine 11160]

6am the phone blasts an amber alert

2-year old missing from rotan

"check local media"

that's it

no vehicle, no license plate

https://abc13.com/amber-alert-victoria-alerman-rotan-texas-reyes-fortuna-figueroa-wanted-in-near-abilene/8326447/

either a kidnapping or parental dispute of some kind?

2 names, 2 pictures

ROTAN TEXAS

4 hours from dallas

8 hours from houston

millions woken up at 6am for a useless APB with zero actionable data

i believe the DPS owns the decision about what and when to broadcast

they need to up their game.  or maybe tom herman already has his next job.

[futureman 22665]

sorry you don’t care about children. 

[JohnnyRage 1617]

I turn it off in settings. Phone forces an update. And blam!

[miguelito 11450]

The new "Clear Alerts" are stupid as shit.  I had to look it up: a clear alert is for someone between Amber and Silver, so like 18-70 or whatever.  But the name makes it sound like "all clear, cancel that alert."  Who are the ad wizards that came up with that one?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13708]

I imagine that most would agree that statewide Amber (and the other) alerts do not accomplish much. However what state rep is going to champion making kids less safe by attempting to eliminate these alerts.

FYI, it appears that 15-20% of the Amber alerts recover the child supposedly due to the alert. Another 65% are recovered not due to the alert. The rest are mistakes, hoaxes, unknown result and unfortunately non-recoveries. Of course, it doesn't mean that the 15-20% wouldn't have been recovered or returned anyway. Most abductions are by parents who don't have custody, and in these cases the physical threat to the child is extremely low.

Are alerts targeted to certain regions in Texas, or are they all statewide? I don't understand the purpose of telling me in Houston at 6am that a 2 year old is missing in Rotan, TX (NW of Abilene) without any other info. If I'm at a Houston grocery store and see a 2 year old, am I supposed to call the police or detain the adult they're with?

[Viper 12212]

 

 

 

[next2naus 439]

is this a Texas thing? I'm on iPhone/Verizon and in NY and this is a non issue. Once I disable in settings, its off untll I change it back

[Doc Reeves 6434]

Same

turned that off in settings years ago and have never gotten one since. Didn’t know that was still a thing and I was so lucky

[Nice Guy Eddie 13708]

PSA. If you want to turn off Amber Alerts on an iPhone, its under Settings > Notifications.  Scroll all the way to the bottom.

FYI, I had Amber Alerts turned on this morning but I also have do-not-disturb turned on from 10p-7a anyway, so I wasn't woken up at 6am. 

[TwiceHorn 31989]

So, Tuesday night, fone went off and I almost ignored it as another fucking Amber Alert.

Turned out to be a Tornado Warning.  I was watching a cable channel, so the Emergency Broadcast System had yet to kick in.  I wouldn't have known otherwise, but it freaked me out considerably because I am just a couple of miles from last year's fall tornado devastation.

Of course, the Warning was canceled before anything got to us so NBD.

But I do need to go turn off Amber Alerts after another update.

[Kyle 207]

I got scared out of REM for the damn alert ... but because 'Murica ... we love symbolic actions that make us feel better even if there is little or no data to demonstrate said symbols actually work.

[Jkwellborn 7007]

I didn’t know you could turn the damn things off.

[Willfully Horn 8204]

I’m a fool to have it enabled; we work from home and the youngest schools virtually. So, after waiting out whatever had me liquid (booze,) 2.5 hours sleep and I’m jolted into focus your eyes mode.

Fuck interesting times.

 

[Mikey4 2484]

Yep, I've had them disabled for years. I would understand if they were alerting me to people who went missing in my city, but some random message about someone hundreds of miles away is unnecessary.

[MaybeACoordinator 8350]

The silver alerts on the highway are also pretty useless. If I am in Houston, it is unlikely I will be coming across the old in his Crown Vic who got lost on the way home from church in San Angelo. Thanks for the distracting sign though!

[Dennis Taylor 19289]

18 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

The silver alerts on the highway are also pretty useless. If I am in Houston, it is unlikely I will be coming across the old in his Crown Vic who got lost on the way home from church in San Angelo. Thanks for the distracting sign though!

You might if he's really, really lost

[RPM 26562]

It's no big deal until it's you kids/Memaw.

[atomheartbevo 90549]

20 hours ago, Mikey4 said:

Yep, I've had them disabled for years. I would understand if they were alerting me to people who went missing in my city, but some random message about someone hundreds of miles away is unnecessary.

Yeah.  Maybe if it was like "Amber alert in your neighborhood", I might call in the creepy neighbor across the street, since once every few months you might hear what sounds like muffled screaming from the attic vent (or it's just a cat in heat or the TV too loud or something).

But from a few cities over, when I live in a metropolitan of over a million, with the busiest highway in Texas running through it?

Edited November 29, 2020 by atomheartbevo

[SquishMitten 10493]

I leave the alerts on, but that Rotan one bothered me as well. That wasn’t enough detail to provide any help. Last I checked, there are more than one “2 YO Hispanic female” in Texas.