A shrill and stressful ringtone: thousands of cell phones received an SMS of a particular type, in the Rouen metropolitan area, Tuesday October 15, 2024, around 10:15 a.m. Fortunately, as indicated, all this It’s just an exercise. Which aims to prepare for a possible disaster scenario.
The Seine-Maritime prefecture is activating the new FR-Alert system for the first time as part of a vast civil security exercise. The scenario: an ammonia release occurred at LAT Nitrogen (formerly Borealis), a high-threshold Seveso site located in Grand-Quevilly.
Containment instructions
“This scenario has two advantagesexplained Tiffany Weynachter, in charge of planning and crisis management at the prefecture, a few days ago. That of reaching a large perimeter and transmitting containment instructions which is not so easy to put into practice within the population. »
This cell broadcast device consists of sending a message to all phones present in a defined geographical area. No need to register, the SMS is received by all turned on phones.
Almost an hour earlier, the Rouen Normandy Metropolis had broadcast its own alert message to the 27,000 people registered with its risk alert SMS system.
