The photos are impressive. In the village of Bihucourt, in the Pas-de-Calais, a tornado destroyed everything in its path. Roofs ripped off, power poles knocked down by the wind… a real disaster that another town in Hauts-de France, Conty (Somme), also experienced.
However, in these two cases, the FR-Alert emergency device did not activate. Tested since June in the territory and officially launched last week, it theoretically makes it possible to warn the population of a danger.
The prefecture taken by surprise?
In practice, FR-Alert takes the form of a message that is displayed on the smartphone screen, without requiring any action from the user. It is accompanied by an audible signal and is sent to all telephones in a specific area. The main strength of the system is that it does not depend on the installation of an application, unlike its predecessor, whose launch was a failure. It passes directly through radio waves, but mobilizing frequencies different from those of mobile operators so as not to saturate the network.
The alert is activated by the prefecture in the event of an imminent danger, be it chemical, sanitary, technological… or natural. In this case, storms or floods will probably be one of the most frequent causes of alert activation.
So why was the device silent in the Hauts-de-France this weekend? Contacted by Tech&Co, the Pas-de-Calais prefecture acknowledges that it was not triggered due to the “brief and unforeseen nature” of the tornado that hit Bihucourt. Also, “the lack of precise location at the time of the formation of the tornado” made it difficult to imagine an alert, explains the prefecture.
Contacted, the Somme prefecture has not yet responded. The device is also probably still in the testing phase for the French prefectures. Fortunately, the two tornadoes that hit Hauts-de-Français caused no casualties.
Source: BFM TV
