Mexico City        A little after 7am, suddenly alarms were blaring on our phones as I tried to translate the Spanish text.  I looked quickly, and could tell it was serious.  We were on the fifth floor, but I could hear sirens outside going full blast.  It looked like the buses in the median had stopped as well.  I knew enough Spanish to understand that this was a warning to evacuate the building.  Opening the door to the hallway, I could see others were gathering.

            Mi companera needed to find her shoes.  I texted our son to get out of his room.  My sandals would work.  We threw on hoodies and when into the entryway.  Suspecting that this was an earthquake warning, we knew better than to try the elevator, where we might be stuck.  We headed for the stairway.  Others were coming down from upper floors.  Many were still in pajamas.  Some children were shoeless.  Many weren’t wearing jackets.

We made our way steadily down the stairway.  Some were stopping and trying find family members behind them.  One young boy raced down the stairs ahead of me.  Once we got to the lobby, we could see people coming from all sides and heading outside of the building.  There was a line of people in the parking area ahead, bunched along the tall shrubbery.  I walked to the corner and could see up and down Insurgentes Sur hundreds of people were milling in front of buildings.  The buses had stopped.  Security from the hotel were making sure everyone was out of the lobby and away from the building.

Everyone was on their phones.  There had been a quake near Acapulco, farther west of Mexico City on the Pacific coast at close to 6 on the Richter scale.  The aftershock had triggered the warnings.  Our son and mi companera had felt the tremor.  I had not.

After about 15 minutes, security seemed to signal that we could re-enter the hotel, so almost as one, we all trooped back inside.  Some stayed in the lobby, still uncertain.  Everyone had responded to the warnings.  The danger was minimal, but thanks to the phone alerts and the sirens, everyone knew how to respond.

What’s the moral of this story?  ACORN in New Orleans has been fighting for siren and phone warnings on hurricanes for years with the State of Louisiana and the city.  In Arkansas, we have joined with the Anthropocene Alliance in demanding an adjustment to the existing siren infrastructure warning of tornados there to add a warning for flooding in areas that our researchers found are susceptible.

Why is this so hard for public and emergency authorities to understand?  Our warning systems are broken, and a fix is available.  The tragedy in the Texas Hill Country was a reminder of how critical warning systems can be.  Mexico City has it right?  Why not everywhere?