December 21, 2009
Woman suing Australian Government for incomplete Emergency SMS alert
A woman whose partner lost his NSW property to bushfire has attacked the Rural Fire Service's new emergency warning text message system for failing to provide enough details about the approaching blaze. The Australian reports.
Ms Jackson and Mr Liepin received an emergency text message from the RFS at about 6pm on Thursday, saying: "Immediate threat to Tinderry Rd, Jerangle Rd, Calabash Rd. Seek shelter, protect yourself from the fire, listen to local radio."
... "The text message doesn't really tell you anything, because the area they are talking about is really huge," she said. "I spent all night trying to find out information about it and it was next to impossible. The 1800 phone numbers they give you are just recorded messages of the same information on the website and I just found it totally frustrating.
RFS assistant commissioner Rob Rogers said as the fire situation was changing quickly, it was difficult to give precise locations.
He also said the text messages were limited to 160 characters, so using specific addresses or even GPS co-ordinates would mean less information in the messages. "Specific addresses could change minute by minute, making GPS or map co-ordinates inaccurate. Also, GPS co-ordinates may not be clear to many people."
Read full article.
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