Cell Phone Emergency type Alerts at Mass

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SMHW

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Back in the early days of Catholic Answers forums there was a plethora of threads regarding cell phones ringing during Mass. Now days I seldom hear cell phones ringing during Mass and if I see people complaining about cell phone usage it is more likely to be about texting, playing games, taking pictures, or watching videos than about phone calls. People seem to have learned how to put their phones on silent when at Mass.

But one thing I have not heard anyone discuss is emergency type alerts.

My family recently received emergency alerts on our cell phones not long before we received in-person orders to evacuate due to a fire in the area. I have received alerts due to weather conditions on multiple occasions. I have also received amber alerts for missing and abducted children. These alerts sound an alarm and sometimes have a voice message even if the cell phone volume is set to silent. But to the best of my recollection, this has never happened to me at Mass.

Have emergency alerts gone off while you were at Mass? If so, were any of the alerts serious enough that people had to leave Mass early? (I mean, other than maybe first responders.)
 
At our Church before the Mass starts the commentator reminds everyone not to put their phones to silent but to switch them off.
 
We had a couple of cops who would come to Mass and keep their walkies on low.
Sometimes they would leave abruptly, but they always stood in the back
 
It’s not something I’ve ever seen but it could have happened. Occasionally the random cell phone goes off but it’s not the norm. I can see getting an alert for a big emergency such as have to evacuate your home due to natural disaster. But the amber alerts and such can wait until Mass is over. One should set the alert alarm to just vibrate at times when it is inappropriate for the alert to go off.
 
I have the cell phone emergency alert permanently set to silent because otherwise it will go off at all sorts of inappropriate times, over things that I do not necessarily need an immediate alert about because the emergency system covers a very wide area. I still get the alerts in text form but without the loud tone. If I was concerned about something like a fire, I might turn the phone back on just for the amount of time I would need to be monitoring for evacuation info, but in general the system is a bit overused in my areas and most people silence the alerts.

I presume that emergency responders have some setting for “vibrate” or similar, partly because they may be in a hospital or a courthouse or some other place where you cannot have a loud alarm.
 
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Emergency Alerts are generally issued to any phone capable of receiving them in the area. So if this were to happen then lots of people (everyone whose phone was on and who hadn’t set it to not receive emergency alerts) would be getting them at once.

I can’t recall that ever happening at Mass though.
 
I always turn my phone off or leave in the car. I have had alarms go off when the phone was set to silent.
 
Our local hospital still issues things that can’t be silenced. I’ve seen our organist dash out in the middle of Mass after his beeper went off: he was the only anesthesiologist in town and was needed NOW!

I also work at a performing arts venue and rather than go in to watch a show after my paperwork is done I’ve often had to babysit the obstetrician’s or OR call in nurse’s phones, neither of which can be silenced.
 
That alert, in my mind, would the only other justifiable alert that could go off during Mass. We have many physicians in our parish and I could really see that happening.
 
Horton said:
That alert, in my mind, would the only other justifiable alert that could go off during Mass. We have many physicians in our parish and I could really see that happening.
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I know my friend is a first responder (paramedic). In our small town those guys are usually on call; although most get their calls on their personal cell but I can see those going off if they forget to set them to vibrate. Firefighters are also on call in the same way.
 
Along with your cell phone, carry a stethoscope in your pocket. When your cell goes off, reach for the stethoscope, wave it in the air, then run out with the cell. No problem is too big now.
 
Hubby and I were traveling when he got one such warning on his phone. It was about regional severe flash flooding and many were in imminent danger. A sacristan whispered to Fr. and he gave a short sentence as a homily and let people know the danger. The church was on higher ground and he let people know that he would do anything needed to host people for as long as it took. He also offered “5 minutes of silent prayer” in which people could call relatives or those without a good warning system.

He then went on with the rest of Mass.

Honestly, with more people living in stupid places that people never should live (mountains with mudslides, deserts, unstable coastal built-up areas etc) i imagine that these sorts of adverse weather reports that have the matter of minutes to respond are going to be more frequent.
 
I keep my cell phone on vibrate when I’m in Church. Just in case the President or the Pentagon has to consult with me.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
Honestly, with more people living in stupid places that people never should live (mountains with mudslides, deserts, unstable coastal built-up areas etc) i imagine that these sorts of adverse weather reports that have the matter of minutes to respond are going to be more frequent.
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I totally hear you about people living in “stupid places”. I am understanding if it’s a case where they cannot afford to live elsewhere, but many of the homes located in these dangerous areas sell for huge amounts of money, so the people who choose to buy them clearly have alternatives.

Having said that, I can see the alerts being useful for cases of flash flooding or fires. Where I am from, we don’t have much fire or flooding problem and the warnings are generally for tornadoes. I can see some use there too, although it seems like the weather service nowadays issues a watch or alert every time a dark clouds appears in the sky, whereas when I was a child it was reserved more for times of imminent danger. There’s a bit of a Chicken Little “sky is falling” effect with too many alerts - people just start ignoring them.

The AMBER alerts are the most controversial ones in my areas now because they have sometimes been sent out at times like 2 am when most people are in bed, and if you failed to silence your alerts then you get woken up by the very loud tone thinking that we are under nuclear attack or a tornado is coming, only to find that it’s an AMBER alert directed to the opposite end of the county and be on the lookout for such and such car, etc. Some people argue that folks should care about these in order to help find missing children, but others do not appreciate being jolted out of their sleep to be told about a car that they are not going to be seeing from their bedroom 50 miles away from the incident.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
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Xanthippe_Voorhees:
Honestly, with more people living in stupid places that people never should live (mountains with mudslides, deserts, unstable coastal built-up areas etc) i imagine that these sorts of adverse weather reports that have the matter of minutes to respond are going to be more frequent.
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I totally hear you about people living in “stupid places”. I am understanding if it’s a case where they cannot afford to live elsewhere, but many of the homes located in these dangerous areas sell for huge amounts of money, so the people who choose to buy them clearly have alternatives.

Having said that, I can see the alerts being useful for cases of flash flooding or fires. Where I am from, we don’t have much fire or flooding problem and the warnings are generally for tornadoes. I can see some use there too, although it seems like the weather service nowadays issues a watch or alert every time a dark clouds appears in the sky, whereas when I was a child it was reserved more for times of imminent danger. There’s a bit of a Chicken Little “sky is falling” effect with too many alerts - people just start ignoring them.

The AMBER alerts are the most controversial ones in my areas now because they have sometimes been sent out at times like 2 am when most people are in bed, and if you failed to silence your alerts then you get woken up by the very loud tone thinking that we are under nuclear attack or a tornado is coming, only to find that it’s an AMBER alert directed to the opposite end of the county and be on the lookout for such and such car, etc. Some people argue that folks should care about these in order to help find missing children, but others do not appreciate being jolted out of their sleep to be told about a car that they are not going to be seeing from their bedroom 50 miles away from the incident.
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Yes. It’s one thing for people who don’t have a choice and gamble with the possibility of natural disaster, but I’d say 90% of the time this is not the case in the most extreme cases. Tornados, floods and fires have always happened. But people today seem to be building in just ludicrous areas. Where hubby and I were this was DEFINITELY not the case. “Sprawling Multi-Million Dollar Mc. Mansion” would be the most accurate description.

I was once in one of the desert states and talking to natives who lead hiking trips. I asked them how they were not annoyed by these horrible signs of oppulance.

One laughed and said “the XYZ villiage” Do you know what pretty sounding XYZ means in our language? "It means ‘no man land’ or ‘death land’ or something of the sort. He said that in 3-5 years nature would take care of it as it had before.
 
I’m 50 we never had cell phones in church when I was a kid because they didn’t have them. I think the best place for your phone is in your car that way you don’t have people talking on there phones while you are trying to pray. Only the people that really need a cellphone because of there condition if they need it to call a caregiver to come pick them up at mass etc.
 
For those who are saying “leave the phone in the car unless you have an urgent need”, some of us use our phones to access prayer and worship apps that we use before, during, and after Mass. I typically use my phone to pull up the Mass readings for weekdays and also pull up certain prayers I say in the church before Mass, at communion reflection time, and after Mass. As long as the phone is set to silent, this is not a problem.

For OF Masses, it is much easier to carry a small phone that I am going to have on my person anyway, than to lug a Missal along.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
For those who are saying “leave the phone in the car unless you have an urgent need”, some of us use our phones to access prayer and worship apps that we use before, during, and after Mass. I typically use my phone to pull up the Mass readings for weekdays and also pull up certain prayers I say in the church before Mass, at communion reflection time, and after Mass. As long as the phone is set to silent, this is not a problem.

For OF Masses, it is much easier to carry a small phone that I am going to have on my person anyway, than to lug a Missal along.
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Yes. Using your phone/tablet is VERY popular in my area with the elderly because they don’t have to touch communal missals. They put their devices in airplane mode…but I do think life-or-death alerts sometimes bypass those options.

Also “leave your phone in your car” is, quite frankly, stupidity. It’s already bad enough that criminals break into cars during Mass for spare change—just think of what they would de if they knew a church parking lot was easy pickings for cell phones. Not every car has a locking trunk/locking glove box.
 
Our parish has an app that silences our phones while at the IP address.
Once you leave the parking lot, your ringer is activated again
Problem solved.
 
Unless you have a phone like mine that’s so ancient you can’t actually put any new apps on it. 😉

But yes, I remember before cell phones, we had a few people in the congregation who had emergency pagers that they kept on during service. Police, EMS, and the like.
 
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