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NEW YORK (AP) – Cell phones across New York and New Jersey vibrated with urgent warnings of catastrophic flooding as the fury of the remnants of Hurricane Ida, carrying torrential downpours, approached from the top New Jersey and New York City on Wednesday.
The first severe weather alerts rang on millions of phones at 8:41 p.m. that evening, when the National Weather Service warned of dangerous flash floods caused by the impending storm. Authorities would issue three more alerts, late at night, urging people to immediately move to higher ground and stay clear of the rising waters.
A barrage of other alerts from a litany of apps lit phone screens all night long, making some wonder if people just weren’t too inundated with information to take the threat seriously.
Experts call it “warning fatigue,” and no one can be sure what role it may have played in a tragedy that has killed at least 49 people in the Northeast, including 25 in New Jersey and 11 in New York, many of whom drowned in their basements. apartments or in cars trapped in submerged roadways.
The weather service acknowledged that in the past warnings were sent too often. There has been a lot of talk about how to get more people to heed the warnings.
“It’s either they don’t believe the information they hear – they can’t verify it – or there is some other reason that is completely beyond anyone’s control,” said Ross Dickman. , the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service. At New York.
“It depends on that person,” he said, “but I think we need to do more work to understand why people make the decisions they make when they receive information and help them understand the impacts. “
In some cases, people tried to flee too late and found themselves trapped by the flood waters gushing so quickly and with such force that they could not open their doors to escape. Others may not have understood that flash floods could also turn roads into impassable and raging streams.
Last year, the Federal Weather Service revamped its criteria for issuing alerts, knowing it could have abused the wireless emergency alert system, which was first put into service in 2012. and now broadcasts urgent warnings to more than 300 million cellular devices.
The weather service implemented a three-tier system in which alerts would only be sent for the most severe floods. Wednesday was the first time he issued an alert for the most catastrophic level of flash floods in New York and New Jersey, Dickman said.
The ubiquity of cell phones makes these devices a key tool in urgently informing the public of hazardous weather conditions, including hurricanes and tornadoes. It is also used for Amber Alerts to enlist the public to help locate missing children. Authorities have also used cell phone alerts to help authorities catch dangerous people, including a terrorist who detonated a bomb four years ago in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood.
New York City now has one million people subscribed to its wireless alert system, which informs of a multitude of developments, including flooding but also disruptions in the subway and other city services.
“People drowning in their basement apartments, in cars, etc. is not something we would typically see in New York City,” said Irwin Redlener, founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. from Columbia University, which said officials must have plans. to accompany the warnings.
“So if we have any warnings that we’re going to see very heavy and rapid rainfall with flash floods,” he said, “what do we really want people to do? Other than letting people know it’s going to happen, do we want them to go to shelters? If so, do we have shelters for them?
The city’s warning system, Notify NYC, was launched as Hurricane Sandy approached nine years ago. The storm killed dozens of people in New York City and caused massive flooding.
“We think a lot when we press that button – and we know the weather service does too – because we don’t want to warn too much and we want people to take our warning seriously when we’re sending messages.” said Benjamin Krakauer, advisor to the Commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management.
James Mielke, a video game designer who lives in downtown Manhattan, found the scares more annoying than helpful.
“Looks like someone just blew a football horn in your ear,” Mielke said.
“I actually got to the point where I Google it up and figured out how to turn off these alerts so that I can just, you know, not have a heart attack every time the Big Siren was ringing on my phone, ”Mielke said, adding that he believed he turned off all emergency alerts on his phone after Tropical Storm Henri hit two weeks ago.
“This time they weren’t that bad, but a few still got it,” he said.
Henri brought a lot of rain and fury but very little loss of life. This may have prompted complacency, said Jeannette Sutton, disaster and risk expert specializing in communications at the University of Albany.
“So they got a message last week that said it was really, really bad and then nothing happened. And then this week they get a message that’s really, really bad – are they taking it seriously? Sutton asked.
It’s an issue of concern to weather and public safety officials, she said, adding that the seemingly simple act of issuing warnings is actually complicated.
“We’ve been thinking about alerts and warnings since the 1950s, how to increase their effectiveness, and how to help people make great decisions when faced with life threatening situations.” , she said.
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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.
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