People all saying the same thing after rare government emergency siren issued to phones across the UK
If you received the Emergency Alert that circulated across the UK around an hour ago, chances are you've been trying to calm your nerves ever since.
An alert was scheduled to be sent out to millions of Brits' mobile phones at 6.45pm today (December 6), to warn of the unsafe weather conditions that could hit certain areas overnight.
ICYMI, Storm Darragh is causing chaos, bringing high winds and potential life-threatening conditions to a number of regions in Britain over the next couple of days.
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To prepare the UK, Brits living in the worst affected areas - ie those covered by a red weather warning in Wales and the south west - were sent out an Emergency Alert, warning them about the concerning weather.
Residents in Devon, Bath and North East Somerset, the City of Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Somerset, Isle of Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Vale of Glamorgan, Cardiff, Monmouthshire and Newport will have received the alert.
Although the alert does, of course, have good intentions, many Brits took to social media to complain about the message.
Not only did the siren attached to the alert cause a fair amount of panic, others claim they immediately clicked off the message in order to stop the piercing noise, which meant that they never actually got to read it.
One person wrote on X: "That emergency alert thing didn’t really work did it. Phones making such a loud noise that we all swiped off it without reading didn’t we?"
While another said: "Well the emergency text alert wasn't that useful because I immediately hit ok to stop the annoying noise and now it's gone."
And a third added: "Absolutely s**t my pants receiving an emergency alert."
"Just had a government emergency alert about the red weather warning in my area and it scared the s**t out of me," another said.
"First thought: apocalypse."
The Met Office issued a red weather warning for parts of Wales and south west England, with the worst affected places seeing winds of 70 to 80mph - even 90mph.
Met Office Chief Forecaster, Jason Kelly, said: “The worst impacts from Storm Darragh will be felt as we go through the early hours of tomorrow (7 December) morning and throughout Saturday with, in addition to the broad yellow warning, red and amber wind warnings in place from 1 am tomorrow.
"In the red warning area, we could see wind gusts of up to 90 miles per hour along the coasts of west and south Wales as well as funnelling through the Bristol Channel, with some very large waves on exposed beaches.
“Although there is a lower likelihood of impacts outside of the red and amber warning areas this doesn’t mean you won’t see them."
Brits have also been warned to expect delays and cancellations on all modes of transport as a result of the storm.
Lucy Devine