It can be at the very least annoying when your smart phone starts blaring with an emergency alert in the middle of the night, or at some other sensitive moment. But, the Maricopa Department of Emergency Management is urging people to keep the alerts active on their phones.
“I get ‘em in the middle of the night also but what happens is that if you’re awake and out and about, and these alerts go off, it’s gonna alert you to something dangerous that’s going on, that may possibly be life threatening that you need to know about," said county planner Richard Langevin.
Langevin says the system has been refined to only alert cell phones connected to towers in a fixed geographic area, affected by the emergency. Langevin urges people not to be startled if they get an alert while driving, but advises pulling to the side of the road before checking the alert.