If an emergency alert is issued on your phone and it doesn’t make a sound, does anyone notice it?

While it’s a different take on the philosophical question of the tree and the sound in the woods, the question remains: If you can’t hear it, does anyone even notice?

You may be surprised to learn that there was an advisory posted to the Alberta Emergency Alert system on Jan. 7.  Yup. But don’t check your phone – you might be searching for a while.

“This is an Alberta Emergency Alert. The City of Calgary has issued a Water Supply alert. A feeder main break along 16 Avenue Northwest has impacted the city’s water supply. Supply levels remain in a critical state, affecting the city’s ability to provide water to communities and ensure adequate water is available for firefighting,” the alert read.

Unlike other emergency alerts, like an Amber Alert or a tornado on the ground, or other imminent threats to life and safety (think wildfire, active shooter), which make an intrusive alert that has triggered many rage posts to social media, this one didn’t make a peep.

Why?

It doesn’t meet the threshold for a critical alert. Which, by the way, comes with that startling noise on your phone.

It was, in fact, an advisory-level alert. This is posted to social media, the Alberta Emergency Alert smartphone app, and sent to local media. According to the province’s website, an advisory alert indicates that “you need to prepare to act for a potential future threat.” This level of threat doesn’t interrupt radio and television broadcasts, and the like, either.

Calgary Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) Chief Sue Henry told reporters that there was an alert for the Boil Water Advisory after the Bearspaw feeder main event first happened. The other was for the water supply. 

They can send a critical alert, but it must meet a couple of conditions.

“One of those conditions is an immediate life safety risk to the public,” Henry said.

“The second is that we need them to be able to take an action within 30 minutes and provide clear direction to them of what that action is.”

Critical alert not needed: Chief Henry

Given Calgary’s desire to drop water consumption below 485 million litres, and the City’s repeated message that it could impact life-saving efforts of first responders like firefighters, isn’t a critical alert warranted?

No, Henry told reporters on Thursday. Not yet anyway.

“No, I do not believe a critical alert is required at this point in time. We have a number of different channels that we can continue to get the message out, through citizens, through various different partners of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency,” she said.

“We remain ready to use that critical alert if we need it, and if we need it, it will be something like a problem in the Glenmore (water treatment) plant, (or) another pipe break that happens somewhere in the city that puts us in a position where we are in dire need of water, and we need citizens to act instantly.”

Henry said they want to save their alert for when they need citizens to take immediate action. And, every member of CEMA is an authorized user of the system and can escalate an alert through a cell phone or their computer.

“We are able to act very quickly if we come into a situation where that is needed,” she said.

As for a state of local emergency, which was enacted during the last Bearspaw feeder main break, Henry said we don’t need that either. That would give them additional powers to mobilize equipment and use property, if required. She said they learned a lot from the June 2024 incident that prepared them for an incident like this.

“We had a lot of the equipment in place. We had the plans in place to be able to repair this pipe,” Chief Henry said.

“That means that we did not need a state of local emergency in order to do that work.”