[Chuck Noland]

Because I work in a large city far from my home in the country, I have tried to think of some ways that I would know that a "RED ALERT" condition has occurred (either within my area where I'm working or within the CONUS).

For example, I regularly check the Drudgereport about every half hour since he's pretty quick about putting out the latest big event sort of news.

I subscribed to Fox News Alerts via emails (they also have a banner that runs at the bottom of your screen but I find that somewhat annoying because of the non events).

I'm not near any windows since I work in a large high rise office but I give a quick glance out the windows when I'm walking the halls just to see if there are any major traffic jams on the highway. If there are, I can scan for several miles in both directions in order to find out what is going on and how widescale the traffic jam is.

I also keep binoculars in my bag at work. Because I'm so high up, if an explosion occurred in downtown Dallas, I would be able to see it fairly well even though it is over 12 miles away.

Just a thought, maybe we here could create our own "Red Alert" system via PM, or some website someone would be willing to maintain that we could subscribe to for personal email alerts. (something more direct than posting news to the forum) That way, we could inform each other of big events that are happening around the country. For example, if a large explosion occurred in downtown Dallas, I would put out an alert. Someone else working in, let's say downtown Seattle, may decide to leave the Seattle downtown area for a "break" for a while just in case it is the beginning of a national terror type of event. Just a thought.

What methods do you guys have in place to alert you?

 

[fcb98292]

I keep two news tickers going while working with a PC. One with CNN and one with BBC.

My contacts have my cel email for mass text alerts, by area.

My office window shows me the freeway into town, the flow of city streets and the speed of foot traffic.

Someone in my office always has the news station on.

 

[MikeK]

I like the idea of some centralized red alert setup. The problem is our own "sky is falling" crowd. Expect a constant stream of false alerts because someone's local refinery has a fire, or "rumor has it that Isreal nuked Iran" or you name it.

 

[Dwind]

agreed, those people in my eyes are WORSE than 5th columners because they're doing it just to get attention. You see posts like that here a LOT too.

 

[pudding7]

Anything that caused me to go to Red Alert would either be felt and seen from miles away (MASSIVE bomb, emp, etc) or be built over a period of days or weeks.

Anything less than full scale rioting in every neighborhood in the city or a nuclear weapon or a 8.0 earthquake under my house isn't going to send me to red alert.

 

[letsgetreal]

I's in L.A. during the South Central riots....saw it on the news.......still, as long as you didn't go to South Central, no effect........it'd have to be pretty huge to be a "Red Alert"....like katrina.

 

[aramchek]

For local emergencies, by the time a national outlet learns about what's going on in your town, re-packages the story, and relays it back to you, you've lost precious time.

In my browser, I have a subfolder of bookmarks entitled something like "5 Miles". I wanted to bookmark sites with extremely local emphasis. If you're rural, maybe you want to make it 50 miles.

The kinds of sites I rely on there: my city hall, police dept, fire dept, department of public safety, NOAA for my city, local chamber of commerce, local community newspaper, local radio stations (NOT talk radio stations), county-level emergency management office, etc. My personal criteria: the sites must be locally owned or administered, a mix of public and private sources, relating to weather, emergency management, government, economy, news, etc.

For something national/international, check out .gov sites (DHS, FEMA, etc.). And maybe a few NGO's, in case the problem (itself) is with .gov...

 

[AKpredator]

I just pay attention to my environment. Read the papers, check the sites and listen to the radio.

I took a personal day on the first snow last November and a couple other times when the weather was nasty. Nothing to prove and work was slow. I did some work at home.

Have at least one alternative plan ready to intercede at a moment's notice be it a BOB or another BOL route.

 

[freepete]

It just seems to me, that aside from Earthquakes, tornados, or terrorist attacks, which can occur without warning, most events that would lead to a bugout don't happen without some warning. Take Katrina, or the NYC Blackout in the late seventies, it took a day or two for people to start freaking out. I think a majority of people who contribute to this site A) have enough foresight to recognize that when the levy is full or the National guard starts rolling in to town its already to late, and B) A little bit of preparedness goes a long way to avoiding situations that make people go into "freak mode". I think each situation is different, and your judgement regarding your situation and what events would lead you to put your plan into action are unique to each of us. I have a feeling that if you are hanging out here, you'll know when that time comes. You know what they say "chance favors the prepared mind"

 

[freepete]

Additionally, I think convincing our family and friends of the writing on the wall will prove much more difficult than convincing ourselves. People tend to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to hard decisions.

 

[Chuck Noland]

Okay, so rewind the clock to September 11, 2001. Your driving to work and on the radio you hear that a plane has just hit one of the WTC towers. Did you shrug your shoulders then and just went on in to work like any other day? You probably did. I did. It was just another day in Dallas. In fact my boss made me and 7 others work overtime that day because we were late on a project.

Basically, 9-11 was a non event to most people in Dallas. I remember telling my co-workers that it is a terror attack. They just laughed at me and said "yeah, right". It wasn't until a few hours past that they realized I was correct. What did they do? They shrugged their shoulders and went back to work.

However, now I consider that a "Red Alert" event. Just because it does not impact your area does not mean one should roll over and go back to sleep. It could be that the explosion in downtown NY is the beginning of multiple explosions in major cities throughout the CONUS, all leading to complete Martial Law in America.

 

[third pig]

For me easy. The dispatcher will tell us.:thumb:

WOW I did not think 911 was "just another day" for anyone in the U.S. Maybe because I live in NY or maybe because I'm a FF with friends on the FDNY , I don't know. Over 3,000 dead an attack on the U.S is a "non - event" in Texas........

 

[Tiltshift]

Twitter is fast and as local as you want. If you are following a decent selection of tweets, you'll have a good grasp of what's going on out there.

 

[pudding7]

Yeah, 9/11 wasn't a normal day for me, but mainly because it was before my work day and the powers that be sent out a company wide email telling people to stay home.

Still not a Red Alert though, for me. I was 3000 miles from 9/11. Even if it happened 10 miles from me, wouldn't be a red alert. It would be more like, "stay off the freeways because there's probably going to be a lot of traffic."

I pretty much have to red alert scenarios that I think could realistically happen; a massive earthquake under Los Angeles, or a HUGE terrorist bomb in the nearby port. Other than that, I think there's going to be days/weeks/months of build up to some society-wide situation.

 

[Chuck Noland]

For me easy. The dispatcher will tell us.:thumb:

WOW I did not think 911 was "just another day" for anyone in the U.S. Maybe because I live in NY or maybe because I'm a FF with friends on the FDNY , I don't know. Over 3,000 dead an attack on the U.S is a "non - event" in Texas........

I'm referring to many people around me and how they were reacting when everything was occurring in NY. I was very curious and tried to listen to the radio, check websites as much as I could. I did this intently for the morning as much as my boss would let me. But there were still people like my boss who was entirely focused on making us get his crap done for him. Even made us work until about 9:00 pm that night. Really ****ed me off, I called my wife on that afternoon and she was really scared. I told my wife the whole freakin' world is coming apart and my whole group of coworkers has to work overtime on 9-11-01. Unbelieveable. Now adays, I'm going home!

Anyway, that's the problem with a lot of Americans in big cities. They are so focused on making money, it seems like America can go to hell. They don't care as long as they drive a nice car and have a McMansion to go to at the end of the day. And oh yeah, the cable TV better be working when they get home else there will be hell to pay! Geesh, what a country we have become.

 

[vc1911]

about to turn 23, i was on my way to GOLF class in college, listening to the incidents on the radio in the car and it was so surreal i didn't know what to think. at that point i didn't know what a terrorist attack was...back then i just thought terrorist where lpeople who hijacked airplanes only??...

country boy had turned pretty liberal up until that point, really changed my way of thinking. if i knew then what i know now would've enlisted that day. (i know, if we all knew then what we all know now)

i'm 4 hours from NYC 2½ from DC. that kind of **** doesn't happen to us, not here.

never again

 

[iyaayas]

I'm thinking the sound of gunfire and explosions will be a pretty good indicator that the SHHTF.

 

[KaBar67]

Twitter is the answer.

 

[charlie505]

I live and work in NYC which has an alert system - text and email messages sent when emergency occurs. You can sign up for specific areas of the city or the whole city. Everything from car fires on bridges to emergency evacuations alerts are sent out. I love it - I know what is going on before the local news puts it on the air. I also carry my ham radio and scanner.
Some major cities have this system - check yours.

 

[Chuck Noland]

Twitter is the answer.

It's funny, I should know about twitter (I'm a 3G telecom engineer so I'm suppose to keep up with all this crap) .... my understanding is that twitter is a website like face book, but hey, I still don't really get it when it comes to face book either! :

So, how is twitter a working solution for this?