[LINK] No cash for phone alert system

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Fred writes,

> There was an incident a couple of weeks ago at the height of the heat
> wave in which the South Australian authorities arranged for an SMS to
> be sent to all mobiles in SA.  There were (quite) a few glitches, but
> in the terms that we're discussing here, the SMS went out. Fred 


Thanks Fred, so we have the en-masse technology anyway. Seems to me, eg
the King Lake bushfire was a power-line fault at whenever and maybe 3am
catching a whole town literally sleeping .. we'll need something better.


Something specific to your area, and will grab your attention. CFA siren
and police megaphone cruising would be heard by much of country Vic, but
SMS specific to your area (eg quarter-cell?) registered for or you're in
could well save many lives in a fire-prone future.


And for which, i say spend up on spotter-aircraft relaying accurate info
direct to web-sites, and ideally, sms road-by-road fire-progress updates 


Cheers,
Stephen