We have hurricane and tornado sirens in the southeast U.S. We also have had phone alerts in the recent past. With the recent cuts to forecasting agencies Humpty Trumpty has made, I doubt we will be getting those for a while. They require a bit more advance forecasting to target recipients correctly.

As an example, there was a recent flash flood in Texas that killed several children at a camp that got fewer advance warnings than it should have because the orange idiot cut funding that resulted in the layoff of the people who woukd have provided those warnings. His administration has just this past couple of weeks cut even more forecasting agencies, specifically the hurricane forecasters.

Nonetheless, the tornado and hurricane sirens are the old school method and they tend to be an immediate "take cover" kind of warning similar to the blitz air raid sirens. Anyone who can hear them might be in imminent danger.

I can think of one instance when the same siren was used in my area for a major fire. It isn't commonly used that way and people did not know why it was going off. The weather was entirely different - cool and dry - for the fire. It was really only those who tried to figure out why the siren went off who learned there was a dangerous fire nearby. We knew there was a major wildfire; we did not know it was rapidly approaching. Fortunately the wind shifted and it did not reach us.

But, that instance made me wonder whether the same siren might be used in different situations, including something like air raids, and how that might be communicated.

We do have an Emergency Broadcast System, mainly designed for television and radio. It uses a distinctive alarm followed by verbal messages that give detailed instructions. I believe it originated during WWII or thereabout. It has been used, more recently, to produce test phone messages. The EBS does on-air tests periodically and has a distinctive siren-like sonic pulse followed by a "This is a test" message.

The EBS definitely needs to be updated since fewer and fewer people view broadcast TV or listen to AM and FM radio. But we will likely have to live through more idiocy before we return to our normal, adult-led emergency preparedness planning and further modernize the EBS.