‘There has to be a better way’: Some B.C. residents want the Amber Alert system to change

In response to a post on X about the Amber Alert, one user said they have already turned off notifications on their phone.

Residents across British Columbia awoke to the blaring of an emergency alert in the very early hours of Monday morning.

The province-wide Amber Alert was issued by the Terrace RCMP, warning the public to keep an eye out for twin toddlers who had been abducted earlier that night and were believed to be in immediate danger.

The children were found less than two hours later in the Burns Lake area, according to the detachment, and are now safe in care.

“The B.C. Amber Alert system worked exactly as intended, and because of that, these children were located quickly and safely,” Staff Sgt. Michael Bourguignon said in a news release.

Social media has been buzzing with conversation since the alert was sent out around 1 a.m., with thousands of people posting their thoughts on X and Reddit. Some recipients in far off corners of the province expressed frustration about being woken up, arguing police had cast an unnecessarily wide net.

“If it’s pertinent I want that alarm loud and clear. But what was I going to do at 1am about some red van that’s a 15 hour drive away,” wrote one Reddit user.

Terrace, where the alert originated, is a 15-hour drive from Vancouver. Dozens of people commented from places like Alberta, the Yukon, and Washington state saying they had also received the alert despite their distance from the abduction scene.

While Amber Alerts can be geographically targeted, a B.C. RCMP spokesperson said they’re usually sent province-wide in the interest of maximizing the chances of a “rapid and safe recovery” of abduction victims.

“In all Amber Alert activations, the paramount consideration is the child’s immediate safety, and as such, the system emphasizes broad and rapid distribution rather than narrowly targeted geographic alerts,” Cpl. Brett Urano told CTV News in an email.

“Notifications include border crossings, ferries, airports, and activates highway signage. This wider distribution significantly increases the chances that someone will recognize key details and notify police, which is critical in time-sensitive investigations.”

The B.C. RCMP is authorized to send emergency alerts both independently and at the request of local police during Amber Alerts or civil emergencies. They serve not only as a means of spreading information, but also as a deterrent to prevent abductions in the first place, according to the RCMP.

Some online critics also said their scramble to silence the blaring alarm resulted in them dismissing the message entirely, leaving them unsure why they were jolted awake in the first place—and wondering whether it could cause people to become desensitized to the system that also alerts people of impending natural disasters.

“I support the Amber Alert system but there has to be a better way to communicate this info without waking up the province,” another Reddit user said. “Waking me up is not going to help these kids. It is going to train me to ignore real emergencies.”

Online critics argue that treating Amber Alerts with the same level of severity as a large-scale natural disaster could lead to alert fatigue, a phenomenon that happens when the public becomes less likely to take an emergency alert seriously due to the increased frequency of seemingly low-risk, high-panic alerts.

Posts were circulating online on Monday with tips on how to turn off notifications for emergency alerts on Apple and Android devices.

Despite those minor frustrations, Amber Alerts appear to serve their intended purpose of getting the public’s attention. The B.C. RCMP said that since the program began in 2004, more than 30 children have safely been located, with the majority found within the province.