from Hacker News

Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

by tejado on 9/10/20, 8:33 AM with 110 comments

• by taejo on 9/10/20, 9:12 AM

  Correction to the article: the annual test day will be the second Thursday in September, not always the tenth.

  I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used. Surely many people don't have the app installed? I'd never heard of it and I've lived in this country the whole time it's been available.

• by moepstar on 9/10/20, 2:02 PM

  Today, somewhere in Bavaria:

  I'm at work, phone goes off - significant other on the line.

  "Our smoke alarms just went off and i'm running around, trying to turn them off"

  I'm like "Ooook, have you been cooking?" - "No, nothing, been working and it just went off, also no smoke anywhere to be seen".

  Scratching my head, looking at my watch, 10:39 (alarms where supposed to go off at around 11:00).

  So, we currently have 6 connected fire alarms around the house (Hekatron Genius Plus X + Base Funk (radio) module, so they're connected).

  They're not connected to anything besides themselves, so i really wondered how and why they'd go off for this test alert.

  Thing is, the smoke alarms do have a notion of what time it is as they turn off the flashing light from 9PM to 7AM, so i wasn't quick to dismiss them catching the publicly broadcasted signal and go off too...

  Scratching my head even further, i figured i'd give Hekatron a call - the guy on the hotline tried really hard to keep his calm but chuckled and said it basically was just a coincidence and if the one that triggered the alarm would go off again i could basically RMA it.

  Lesson learned, coincidences do happen, also people do win the lottery after all :)

• by _Microft on 9/10/20, 8:48 AM

  Tests like this have been conducted on smaller scale in the past, either on Landkreis (county) level or state level. Some towns even test their fire sirens once per month. What makes this newsworthy is that it is conducted "nationwide". Beside that, it's not such a special thing.

• by mauz0r on 9/10/20, 9:17 AM

  People in The Netherlands are used to this sound, hearing it every first Monday of the month at noon for the last 17 years now.

  I wonder how effective this will work in case of real trouble.

  https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/terrorismebestrijdi...

• by lqet on 9/10/20, 9:06 AM

  Meh, the sirens are tested here twice a year. This is the case in many areas. Where my parents live, they are tested every 3 months.

  More interestingly, the federal government is realizing that it may have been a mistake to dismantle the sirens in many areas after the Cold War ended, mainly because things likes TV, radio or app messages cannot warn people at night, when their devices are off. I have heard of 3 possible fixes that are discussed:

  a) build more sirens again

  b) use the mandatory smoke detectors in every home for a warning system

  c) use car alarms or car horns

  It would be interesting to see how b) and c) are implemented without any concerns regarding security or potential for misuse.

• by tyteen4a03 on 9/10/20, 9:12 AM

  Am in Berlin, heard absolutely nothing, not even a push from the NINA (emergencies) app. Is this thing on? tap tap

• by docdeek on 9/10/20, 9:20 AM

  > Air raid sirens sounded for one straight minute starting at 11 a.m., testing their tones full blast before varying the pitch of the tone.

  The sirens are tested in Lyon, France on the first Wednesday of every month. It’s nothing too out of the ordinary but interesting that Germany hasn’t done it in so long.

• by raxxorrax on 9/10/20, 9:14 AM

  That would have been 15 minutes ago and it seems that nothing happened.

• by mseidl on 9/10/20, 9:03 AM

  I'm German and literally just heard the siren and was like, wtf? Then I check hn and here we go! ha.

• by s_severus on 9/10/20, 9:07 AM

  This is routine next door in Austria: https://www.bmi.gv.at/204_english/skkm/warning.aspx

  Though I must admit I was very surprised the first time I experienced it (I hadn't been forewarned).

• by pascalmahe on 9/10/20, 9:12 AM

  Not on the same scale but, in France, fire alarms are tested every first Wednesday of the month at midday sharp. Though you don't hear them from everywhere so it can still be quite a shock after a few years of not hearing it.

• by kryptiskt on 9/10/20, 10:59 AM

  Sweden tests the emergency sirens the first Monday every month at 3PM. It's kind of weird when we have dismantled most every other kind of preparedness.

• by Neil44 on 9/10/20, 10:53 AM

  I remember when I was growing up in the UK in the 80’s we had siren tests from time to time. It seems strange now living in the real Cold War.

• by s9w on 9/10/20, 9:15 AM

  And the official national warning app (NINA) failed

• by ephimetheus on 9/10/20, 9:30 AM

  It just finished. Felt a bit weird actually.

• by solarkraft on 9/10/20, 9:24 PM

  Nobody I talked to today noticed.