A County-Wide Rude Awakening

Have I ever gotten a phone call at 5:26 a.m.? I doubt it. Oh, that's right, I did get one this morning. Why do I think I might get a phone call at 5:26 a.m.?

1) Wrong number.
2) Tragedy or death struck someone I love.
3) The county calls to give everyone in the county a phone number to call because 9-1-1 is not in service.

As I violently awoke from the depths of a comforting, restful, healthy sleep, contemplating whether the phone call at 5:26 a.m. fell under #1 or #2, I decided not to answer the call. Fully awake after the fourth ring, I decided that if the phone call fell under reason #2, which I would want to take, the caller would know and use my cell phone if it were truly urgent. I decided it was a wrong number after listening for a possible follow up ring on my cell phone and none came. I lay awake, alone, for about 10 minutes, kind of scared to get up, go down the hall, and to the kitchen to find out if the caller left a message. I heard a few noises in the house. Half-asleep fear of the darkness and the unknown entered my consciousness briefly, and I irrationally wondered if I should lock my bedroom door. After about a half hour, I went back to sleep, the desire for sleep blocking out my fear, my rational subconsciousness telling me I live in a safe neighborhood, and that the noises were probably my imagination.

Later in the morning, at a more decent hour, I got up to see if the caller had left a message. There was a message there. I expected it to be the wrong number. Someone had just called our house on Friday, thinking they had called a restaurant.

It turns out the reason fell under #3. It wasn't even a call made from a human. I wouldn't have minded if the county's new alert system called me at 5:26 a.m., or any time of day, morning, or night, to warn me of a tornado, earthquake, volcano, neighborhood plane crash, deadly chemical spill, environmental catastrophe, or imminent terrorist attack. But to wake me up that early on a Sunday morning to tell me that, just in case I might need to call 9-1-1, that I should use a different phone number, because 9-1-1 doesn't work at 5:26 a.m.? What were they thinking? With all that advanced technology, why couldn't they just forward the calls to the non-9-1-1 number? Or just anticipate that someone in an emergency situation might open up a phone book, page 1, to look up the local ambulance, police, or fire telephone number, if that someone couldn't get through on 9-1-1?

Did anyone ask me if I wanted to be part of this emergency alert system? Did anyone ask me if I wanted to be alerted if 9-1-1 doesn't work? Who decided that this constituted an emergency? Thanks, but no thanks.