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Comment by RheingoldRiver | Hacker News Reader

to me it's not so much intrusions but fire safety - I want a way to call 9-1-1 in the middle of the night if my smoke alarms go off

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Get out of the house, then worry about calling 911. The amount of time it takes to turn your phone back on won't make any substantial difference.

Your phone must turn on a LOT faster than mine!!

Also if you live in tornado alley, nice to get weather alerts if there is a tornado watch

Fortunately I don't, but wouldn't you get an alert at least the day before?

Tornadoes are not hurricanes. They're small and very localized. When I lived in tornado country the sirens would go off only when rotations were detected.

I was thinking maybe you'd get some kind of generalised alert that tornadoes may be expected overnight, but generally, you'd be safe. If there are sirens anyway, it doesn't sound like you'd need the phone on.

If I (bizarrely) got a message informing me that a tornado was about to hit my house, I'd a) assume it was a scam b) have no idea about what I was supposed to do about it anyway. Hold on to something solid to avoid getting sucked away?

Coming from a reliable local source, so it's not a scam, a tornado warning will come in 10-15 minutes before it hits. This is enough time to go to the basement/storm cellar/shelter. If you live in tornado alley it's just how you live your life.

As someone who lives in Texas, the push alerts for dangerous weather has been very helpful. Not just tornadoes, but violent storms with damaging winds or hail also happen 10-20 times per year. As previously said, these storms are very localized and often materialize with only 10-30 minutes of notice. That notice can be used to relocate everyone to a safe place away from windows, in the case of a tornado warning, or protect outside pets/livestock, vehicles, etc in the case of a violent storm.

It's a point I suppose. I'd have to go to another room where I left the phone on the desk, hopefully not blocked by a fire, and turn it on. But I think my partner leaves her's on, so she could do it.

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