this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
861 points (98.6% liked)
World News
32521 readers
562 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This morning storm Poly smashed the Netherlands, especially North Holland (Amsterdam region). Digital emergency alert system was used, three times, and directed people to Twitter.
Which was closed, of course. It's a political shitshow right now. Amsterdam municipality already runs its own Mastodon, and this fuckup will probably have consequences in moving official broadcast channels off Twitter.
Germanys gov runs its own Mastodon instance - social.bund.de - where the cabinet, the ministries, state institutes etc have their official accounts.
Some non-political examples are: The German Weather Service, the German Aerospace Institute, and the Consumer Protection Agency.
Nonsense like this is why I believe outdoor warning sirens are still incredibly important. Mobile alerts are not foolproof, and can be bungled horribly, and not everybody has their phone on them, or a phone at all. If there's a severe storm or tornado coming, you need to know ASAP. Sirens are an excellent way of getting people indoors, regardless of who's outside. I heard the Netherlands was considering decommissioning its countrywide siren system, which I thought was absolutely fucking stupid. What you posted proves exactly why.