‘My first reaction was kind of shock’: False alarm about nuclear emergency awakens Ontario

Like so many other people in Ontario who sleep near their phones, Mark Guinto woke up at exactly 7:23 a.m. on Sunday, startled by an emergency alert about an “incident” at the Pickering Nuclear Station.

Immediately, he was suspicious though: Pickering, a small city east of Toronto, has had a nuclear power plant since the 1960s and there’s never been an incident. But it has sirens it can sound, and a detailed crisis response plan in case of a real event. Hagg figured he would at least have gotten a call if something had happened at the nuclear plant.

The result was a province wide scramble to respond, in what marked the first nuclear-related emergency alert issued in Canada under its current notification system — a false alarm as it turned out that was distributed throughout Ontario. Jones said she has assigned Doug Brown, chief of emergency management, to conduct an investigation of the incident.

In Canada, the national public alerting system is known as “Alert Ready.” It relies on software and technology developed by Oakville-based Pelmorex Corp., which allows government officials to issue alerts about life-threatening events such as child abductions, tornadoes or floods. Recently the alerts have been generating controversy, with some people complaining that the notifications are disruptive and yet they cannot be turned off on smartphones.

I recently finished HBO show Chernobyl, so you all can imagine how would I have reacted. I started looking for something to use as a mask and ensured all my windows and doors were sealed air tight.

My first reaction was 'I'm having a heart attack.'

Mine was,. Oh, no.

I woke up. Clicked my phone to stop and went back to sleep. Didn’t even read it 🤷🏼‍♂️

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