A nonstop flood of heat wave alerts gets some residents hot under the collar

Over 4,000 disaster text alerts were sent out nationwide in July and another 1,255 in the first five days of August, especially as heat warnings covered most of the country.

The messages reach everyone with a cell phone at once, warning the public of various weather conditions or imminent disasters and advising them on how to stay safe.

But some say the government is sending too many alerts, to the point of irritation. Experts call it "alert fatigue" and question the effectiveness of the notifications. 

An older resident of Yongsan District, central Seoul, counted eight safety alerts on Aug. 4 alone. The first came during a drive to Gangwon at 9 a.m. from the city government of Guri, Gyeonggi, then more from the Gyeonggi provincial government, the Gangwon provincial government and Hongcheon County, each with heat warnings and reminders to drink water.

On the way home that afternoon came alerts from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the National Fire Agency and the Seoul city government. The fire agency sent the same advice on preventing heat-related electrical fires twice, about five and a half hours apart.

"On Aug. 3 I counted 10 of them," the resident said. "I understand safety alerts are necessary, but the same content keeps repeating, and in weather this hot it just makes me irritable."

Disaster texts come in three tiers, sorted by how dangerous the situation is. The top tier goes out when there is a large-scale disaster or casualties are feared. The middle tier covers situations needing an immediate response, such as terrorism, a suspected radiation leak or heavy rain. Both sound an alarm of at least 40 decibels on a phone regardless of its settings. The third tier, for everything short of those, carries prevention advice and instructions on what to do, and arrives at whatever volume the user has set.

Heat counts as a natural disaster under the system. Once a heat warning is issued, the local government can send third-tier alerts between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. Add the Interior Ministry and the fire agency on top of that, and several a day is common. A total of 4,189 disaster alert texts were sent last month. 

Residents complain that the messages say much the same thing and that the alerts go off during work. Local government officials say the alerts are a response to record heat and are meant to reduce deaths and illness from the temperatures.

Since 2016, phone settings have allowed users to turn off everything except the top tier. Older people who are less comfortable navigating settings often do not know the option exists.

"I had no idea there was a way to turn them off," the Yongsan resident said.

Experts warn that alerts arriving this often can produce the opposite of their intended effect, a phenomenon known as "alert fatigue." As the messages pile up, the sense of risk drops. The Houston Chronicle has reported that a run of flood, tornado and missing-child alerts in Texas left some residents treating real emergency warnings as routine.

Specialists in crisis and risk communication say the work of sorting the messages has been pushed onto the public. Every alert forces fresh judgment about whether it is immediately relevant. When disasters of very different severity keep arriving through the same channel, they say, even the warnings that matter lose urgency. The solution, they say, is a more deliberate system designed around frequency, recipients and delivery method for alerts that genuinely matter.

BY KIM MIN-WOOK [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]