The Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) calls out the disaster alarm in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia on March 9 at 11 a.m.

What do those affected have to do to get the warning message?

If you haven’t received a warning message, there may be four reasons

You have an old smartphone
You have turned off your smartphone or the device is in flight mode
You have not installed the latest update of your operating system,
You have not activated “Cell Broadcasting”.

You have an old smartphone – you have to do that

If Apple and Google do not provide you with further updates of the operating system for your smartphone, you can switch to warning apps.

There are about
NINA
, the official federal warning app. Also warning apps like
BIWApp

and
Katvarn
issue official civil protection warnings. Official weather warnings are available in the app
warningweather

of the German Weather Service (DWD).

Compatibility cannot be guaranteed for these programs either if the operating system is not up to date.

Don’t just look at the age of the smartphone

It’s not just the age of the smartphone if you stop receiving updates.

Often you cannot update because you are low on disk space or the server cannot be contacted.

If you are short on storage space, you should either use cloud services or remove old photos, apps and videos. Cloud services ensure that the storage space is created virtually. This frees up storage space on your smartphone.

If you cannot contact the server, check your internet connection or try again later. Smartphones often display this message if you want to carry out updates with a throttled Internet connection.

Basically, you should always carry out updates with an activated WLAN connection.

You can find out the age of the smartphone by looking at the model number and the manufacturing period. The operating system also provides information about this. If you still have iOS 13 and iOS 14 installed on your iPhone and no further updates are made available to you, your mobile phone is out of date for the “Cell Broadcasting” warning system.

The same applies if you cannot install the required Android operating system version 11 on Samsung, Huawei, Google Pixel, One Plus and other Android devices.

Turn on the smartphone and turn off Airplane mode

In order to receive the alerts, you must turn on your cell phone. Airplane mode must also be disabled. If the cell phone is switched off and flight mode is switched on, the device cannot be found. As a result, there are no warning messages.

The situation is different if cell phone reception is poor. Even if you have no reception at all where you are, the warning message should pop up on the screen without any problems.

Install the latest update for your operating system

If you have an iPhone, check Settings, then General, then Software Update to make sure your device is up to date.

Again, if you are using Samsung, Huawei, Google Pixel, Xiaomi, OnePlus or other Android devices, select “Settings”, then “System” and then “System update”. Follow the on-screen instructions

Activate “official warnings” on your device

“Cell Broadcasting” displays a warning message on the mobile phone in the event of a disaster. The system is pre-installed on all smartphones. However, in some cases it may be disabled. You can activate the system manually if you have the latest version of Android or iOS.

If you have an Apple device (iPhone), change the setting under “Settings” and “Notifications”. Scroll to the bottom of the settings and check all the boxes under “Official Warnings”, “Alerts” or “Cell Broadcasting”. Depending on the iPhone, “Test message” may also be listed there.

If you cannot find any information under this menu item, you should definitely update the operating system of your iPhone.

On Android devices (Samsung, Huawei, Google Pixel, Xiaomi, OnePlus) you can activate notifications under “Settings”, then “Advanced settings” and “SMS notifications”. There you need to check the box “Emergency notifications for mobile devices”.

Due to the large number of brands and the different menu navigation, the setting may also be visible directly under “Settings” and then “Security and emergencies”.

Why are SMS alerts on smartphones important?

Mobile phone alerts make it possible to quickly inform people about important life-threatening events. These include natural hazards, dangerous storm warnings, terrorist attacks or serious accidents in chemical plants.

This is particularly important in the event of a disaster. The displayed text message is 500 characters long, graphics and images cannot be sent. In the event of a disaster, the warning message states what the danger is and what those affected should do.

The disaster in the Ahr Valley in July 2021 made the weaknesses of German civil protection clear. Many of those affected were not warned in time. 180 people died in the flood disaster. The federal government then declared that it wanted to readjust civil protection.

In line with this topic: