Once upon a time, Billy Crook <BCrook@unrealservers.net> said:
On a technical note (having read the comment about overloading the system) could a system like DNS help handle this?
I wouldn't think so, because some of the important alerts are very time sensitive. It's been mentioned several times in this thread that the earthquake alerts are on the order of 10 seconds in advance. I know someone that survived a tornado by a few seconds (the time it took to get out of bed and get to the bedroom door as the tornado dropped the second floor of the house on the bed). To be useful for the worst events, they need to be push, and push in very short order. And since those are the alerts most likely to be life-saving, those are what the system needs to be built for (or what's the point). And to the point of the weather service sending out more alerts than in the past: yes, they do. To some extent, it's better radars and software to find hazards; they're also learning all the time to better identify what is and is not a threat (so there are storms that might have had a warning 10 years ago that might not today). But I'll take extra alerts now and then... a friend died in a tornado years ago because the warning came after it was on the ground (and probably after they were dead). -- Chris Adams <cma@cmadams.net>