Testing, testing.
At 1:55 p.m. on Nov. 28, the province was scheduled to sound off as Emergency Preparedness BC tested its public alert system for the second time.
The first public alert earlier this year did not reach all British Columbians. In the Victoria News office, six of the eight cell phones owned by the news team received the alert on Nov. 28. The TVs did not.
READ and WATCH MORE: Did you get the message? Canada tests its emergency alert system
Did your alert work? Tv didn’t change here. But u can hear the phones going . #emergencyalert #yyj @BlackPressMedia pic.twitter.com/j9MMD1WLq9
— Victoria News (@VictoriaNews) November 28, 2018
In the nearly 200 comments on Vic News Facebook, there were mixed responses. Many got the alert on multiple devices — it could have come through TV, radio or cell phones on an LTE network — as well as the Weather Network app and their tablets.
Some said they only received the alert on TV, even though it had gone off on their cell phone during the previous demo in May.
Others who didn’t know the alert was taking place on Nov. 28 were caught off guard.
“Yup scared me as I was just holding my phone and then put it down and boom started going off and vibrating like crazy,” MaryLou Vinet commented.
Reader Linda Clark wrote that she was driving past the construction on McKenzie when it sounded off. “Glad my daughter was in the car to tell me what the hell it was.”
Margaret Lever was also driving when her iPhone received the alert, even though she’d set the device not to receive notifications.
Timothy McCullagh said he got the alert twice, an hour apart.
“Yes, most of the bus I was on had them go off,” Terri Turbide commented.
As of 8 a.m. the morning after the alert, 82 per cent of people responding to our Twitter poll said in a poll that they received the test. Eighteen per cent of the 44 people who voted said they did not. Tell us if you received the alert by taking our poll below.
Six out of eight phones in our newsroom recieved the alert. Did you get the #EmergencyAlert test? #yyjnews #yyj #EmergencyPreparedness
— Victoria News (@VictoriaNews) November 28, 2018
READ MORE: West Shore partners with CRD to implement emergency alerts