Glad They Let Me Work From Home

[kevin_standlee]

This morning, as I was groggily thinking of getting out of bed after having hit the snooze bar several times, I heard KCBS activate the Emergency Alert System not for a test. The alert was for a storm with potential for golf-ball sized hail in the Santa Cruz Mountains, crossing state highway 17 shortly. Now my commute takes me nowhere near that area, but I was still very grateful that I could work from home today and not go out into that storm. (I do have to do so sometime later this afternoon in order to deposit a check I'd like to get into the bank before closing time today; however that's not a long trip and I hope won't be too big a deal.)

Meanwhile, time to buckle down on this analysis project.

Comments

[edgreen86.livejournal.com]

People around our age have a weird connection to the EAS/EBS/CONELRAD. When those tones sound on the TV or radio, for me there's always that throw back to childhood, wondering if we're going to hear the opening news of WWIII.

Once, as I was sitting at my desk at a National Guard Armory during the early hours of the LA Riots in 1992, they activated the EBS, and ordered all LA County Cops (any flavor or city) and Firefighters to duty *NOW*.

During a day with major creep factors going on, that reached the highest.

It was

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

...cut off at the past, I guess.

Yeah, for people of our age and older, using that system for anything except end-of-the-world catastrophes is creepy.

When I lived in Bishop while in my first two years of high school, the local fire station had a loud siren that would sound one time at noon daily and three times to mean "volunteer fire fighters, turn out and turn on your radios to find out where the call is." It was local lore that five times meant "nuclear attack, head for a shelter." One day the siren sounded four times and I (and everyone around me who had heard that lore) froze, wondering if we'd hear a fifth alarm, which we did not. I guess someone hit the button one too many times, but it was a little scary to high-school-freshman me.

Weather report

[(Anonymous)]

Just to say that I *do* commute through that area. I took 9 north in the morning and 17 south in the evening. There was no sign of snow on the ground, much less hail in the air.

Best,

Glenn