tl;dr: Tennessee has been blatantly abusing the Emergency Alert System for years and this has led to people turning off or otherwise ignoring alerts that could potentially be life-saving.

I feel like parts of what I'm about to say are going to be unpopular, but hear me out.

Let's start with the obvious: Yesterday's "Blue Alerts" were not only unnecessary, but worse than that; they were completely worthless and in fact, slightly harmful. What does the state of Tennessee honestly expect me, a dude lying in bed in my underwear in the middle of the night, to do about a cop being shot 200 miles away?

I get that a manhunt in such a case is important, but seriously - is it necessary to wake up everyone in the state? The alert range couldn't be narrowed a bit? The dude was ultimately found in Kentucky - did people in Kentucky get these alerts too? And further, the alert didn't actually have any information in it at all. it just linked to the TBI's twitter feed - not a tweet; not a page with information about what went down or who they were looking for - a damned twitter feed.

Next - Amber Alerts.

Okay, I get it. These are super important because a child is in danger. I'm not arguing against that, nor am I arguing against Amber Alerts going out. I am, however, arguing against Amber Alerts going out using the EAS.

The Emergency Alert System is meant for immediate threats to life. The tone that plays before an EAS alert is mandated by federal law and is in fact banned from any broadcast NOT related to an alert. The FCC levies HUGE fines for broadcasting that tone in any situation other than an actual alert, and they actually enforce this.

But nearly every other day, it seems like, another Amber Alert goes out to everyone in the state blaring the tone on every device in earshot. It'll have the words "Amber Alert" and a link to a page somewhere. In my experience, nobody ever even looks at the linked page. They go "ugh" and silence the alert. In the worst cases, the person disables emergency alerts on their phone. This is a horrible outcome because now, that person won't get alerts that could potentially save their life, such as tornado or flash flood warnings.

Now, the alerts are important, truly, I get that. But I have three problems with them, and propose three solutions:

1. Stop blasting the whole damn state with an alert every time a kid goes missing or a cop gets shot. EAS alerts can be geo-targeted. That's why I can get a flash flood warning, but my buddy 30 miles away doesn't get that warning. Instead, target the alerts to where they actually matter. Send the alert to a 100-mile radius around where the kid disappeared from or the cop got shot, and maybe also target any additional areas where they're likely to flee to -- For example, if an estranged dad snatches his kid from a day care in Nashville and is known to have family in Memphis and Shreveport, LA, target 100 miles around Nashville, 50 miles around Memphis, and 50 miles around Shreveport. Don't blast Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Johnson City with an alert unless there's a credible chance of the kid being there. Put the alert up on traffic signs statewide and blast it to all the news stations, sure, but stop hitting every damned phone in the state with it.

2. Actually include relevant info in the damned alert. Don't link to a separate page and don't link to your goddamned twitter feed. Say what needs to be said. If a link is necessary, link to a page with all of the relevant info in one place and keep it up to date. There's absolutely zero reason to ever link to a damned twitter feed besides laziness. To use the day care example above, the alert could be: "Amber Alert - Sarah Goodman: 6yo Female. Brown hair; green eyes; 4'1"; Birthmark on right arm. Last seen with father: Jim Goodman: 36 yo male. Brown hair, blue eyes; 6'1"; Tattoo of smiling bullet on right arm. Red Chevy S-10; Plate # 123-ABCD. More info: some.link.com/w932jnd" and have photos and every piece of relevant info on the linked page kept up to date. This would be insanely easy to implement.

3. Change the tone for Amber Alerts and Blue Alerts (edit: and Silver Alerts - forgot about those). Don't use the standard EAS tone. That tone should be reserved for immediate threats to the life of the person receiving the alert to ensure that they're not ignored or silenced. Want to use some other tone engineered to be as obnoxious as possible? Fine. But use a DIFFERENT tone. Separate the alert types. Ensure that people receive life-saving information in a disaster and that they don't just disable the alerts to keep from being woken up at 12:30 in the damn morning.

In conclusion, now that I've ranted for 20 minutes: TN has been lazily abusing the EAS for years and this has led to people disabling life-saving alerts due to the sheer volume and uselessness of most alerts. TN should take action to reevaluate the methods used to notify the public of important information in a timely manner.

So, assuming I'm not in the overly-bitchy-asshole minority, how do we actually get some change started here? Who do we start nagging? What can we do to actually enact a little sense here?

Edit: Somebody claiming to be the TN EAS Chairman has commented below, effectively telling me to quit whining and specifically inviting DMs. The account was only 20 minutes old at the time of posting, so they may just be a troll, but they sound like they know what they're talking about, so if they are, they're a convincing troll. Please tell the esteemed Chairman whether we agree with their assessment or not.