An SMS alert to warn the population has been designed by state services.
The message was received by thousands or even tens of thousands of people this Thursday morning on their cell phones. And he had reason to worry: “Major climatic event, take shelter”, we could read on his smartphone. However, this SMS was not a joke or fake news and even came from the Loire-Atlantique prefecture. This sent it to all the cell phones of residents and people in the area, between 10 and 11 a.m.
During the day on Friday, at a time which has not yet been communicated, another alert message will be sent to 130,000 people this time. The inhabitants of Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) and the 12 surrounding municipalities will in turn read a warning on their mobile phone informing them of a release of toxic gas from a company in the industrial-port zone. A message that will certainly have an effect, while the city is less than 100 km from the Lubrizol factory, which suffered a serious fire in 2019.
These SMS messages, which are enough to create suspicion and appear as spam or an attempt at fishing, are in reality only tests, as part of a full-scale security exercise, organized by several prefectures. The objective: to simulate an industrial accident and test the information systems for the population and the cooperation of the emergency services. So don’t panic if you are affected and have not been informed!
In Friday’s exercise in Le Havre, the simulation will concern the Yara France chemical factory in Gonfreville-l’Orcher (Seine-Maritime), which manufactures nitrogen products: a serious accident is imagined and this gives rise to a potential release ammonia, a toxic gas. In detail, the exercise will make it possible to test the articulation of all the emergency plans which concern businesses, educational establishments and communities. The general management of the environment, the Department, the firefighters, the Samu, the regional health agency, the police and even associations will be mobilized.
A fictitious weather forecast will even be simulated and actions will be carried out “for the protection of the population, property and the environment”, says the prefecture. A closure of the toxic cloud diffusion zone will be activated.
The system, called FR-Alert nationally, makes it possible to broadcast imperative instructions such as confinement, shelter or evacuation in the event of imminent danger. All affected residents receive a ringtone and a message on their phone, even if it is in silent mode. France Bleu specifies that “residents do not need to register anywhere or download an application to receive the message”, which travels directly through the radio waves of relay antennas.
During this PPI (special intervention plan) exercise, residents will receive a first alert message if they are located in the danger zone of the Yara company. It will indicate the instructions that would have been issued if the incident had actually occurred, such as “Take shelter”.