Why some people didn't get emergency text alerts during Cyclone Gabrielle
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
A 2degrees customer says he would not have known to evacuate his Hawke’s Bay home during Cyclone Gabrielle if it had not for his flatmate who was with Spark.
Hayden Peacock was at his Taradale rental property on February 14 when an emergency evacuation was ordered for his area.
But Peacock’s phone had no service with 2degrees, so he did not receive any of the emergency alerts.
”My flatmate is with Spark and received emergency alerts, including the critical evacuation notice. If I wasn’t living with him, I would not have known about the evacuation,” he said.
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His flatmate had limited service with Spark during the cyclone.
Peacock was listening on his car radio for updates after the evacuation. But before the alert was sent it had not occurred to him to listen to the radio because the weather was still fine and everything appeared “normal” right up until the evacuation.
Phone and internet coverage had been out for most of last week in Hawke’s Bay after the cyclone.
2degrees coverage was out all of Tuesday and Wednesday, including all calls and subsequent emergency alerts. Coverage was restored on Thursday.
Telecommunications Forum NZ chief executive Paul Brislen said if a phone company’s cell towers had no power, it could not send any communications out, alerts or otherwise.
”If the coverage was offline when the alert was sent out then no, it wouldn’t get through to that customer.
Customers could still call 111 even if they had no service, as long as there was a live cell tower in range operated by another company.
“It’s always been this way - if you don’t have power you can’t send out messages.”
A 2degrees spokesperson said the emergency alerts were sent out by various government agencies to all telco networks.
“The message system the government uses unfortunately doesn’t go to 100% of all handsets – there are edge cases where devices aren’t supported or maybe running old software and not capable of receiving the message,” he said.
“If there’s no cell service in an area, the message won’t go through.”
A National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) spokesperson said emergency mobile alerts were broadcast to all capable phones from cell towers in a targeted geographical area.
“The system does rely on cell towers and cellular networks being operational. The benefit of the alerts being broadcast across multiple networks is that it provides a degree of redundancy if one network goes down,” she said.
The mobile alerts were not meant to replace other emergency alerts, or the need to take action after natural warnings, she said.
“You still need to prepare for an emergency, and you should not wait to get an alert before you act.”
In order to reach as many people as possible, emergency information and warnings will always be provided across multiple channels including online, radio, TV, social media and websites.