On June 20, a “Cyclone” crisis management exercise was held in the prefecture with the sending of a test alert message as part of the triggering of the FR-Alert system. Vincent Berton, delegated prefect and director of relief operations, accompanied among others by Eve Riboud, general director of Dauphin Telecom, invited the press this morning to debrief the exercise.
As a reminder, the FR-Alert application is a messaging machine which broadcasts an alert message to the population on their mobile phone over a specific geographical area (on, connected and in a covered area for one of the operators). If you have a 4G/5G phone with an up-to-date operating system, you should have received this triple message in French, English and Spanish for SXM (French and English for SBH) directly on the home screen of your device , accompanied by a shrill ringtone.
If you have an older phone, do not hesitate to contact your operator to adjust your settings in order to receive this type of alert message, which is very useful as the peak of the hurricane season approaches.
For Vincent Berton, this type of cell broadcast technology is a big advantage for the State which has direct control locally: “We are entering the heart of the hurricane season, so we will have to use FR- Real alert at key moments but know that we are not going to saturate people's phones with information that is not essential, we will send a message to the population only if it is important. At the end of the exercise on June 20, which involved the assistance of 5 local telecommunications operators, some adjustments remain to be made for some. Eve Riboud welcomes the collaborative work between all the operators and the quality of the project managers: “The State services provided the resources and we worked hard with the teams from the Defense Electronic Communications Commission (CCED) (conductor of the system, editor’s note) and the Ministry of the Interior. It is a very powerful tool for sending a message at any time”.
Exercise results
Although the prefecture does not have exact figures on the number of people who received the alert message, note 100% success in 4G at Dauphin Telecom and Orange, customers of foreign operators who were roaming on the 2 French networks also received the test alert message. Digicel users did not receive the message for a faulty connector problem but this has since been resolved. The other two operators also failed to complete the mission: Flow due to a problem related to the use of Spanish, and Free for a cause that has not yet been identified. Additional tests will be carried out silently (without sending a message to users' phones) to refine the system already well installed in the territories of Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy.
Call for vigilance
Vincent Berton also wanted to reiterate his advice on vigilance, preparation, storage and cleaning to the population on the eve of the peak of the hurricane season: “Fortunately we have not yet been impacted by a phenomenon but I am calling to vigilance in this season which must be taken very seriously this year”. The prefecture's services continue their collaborative work with the Community on the cleaning of bulky items, end-of-life vehicles, suction boats in the lagoon and ravines. Wasteland hotels, boats no longer in seaworthy condition, several formal notices have been and will be issued to guarantee everyone's safety. _Vx
Fr-Alert device information: https://fr-alert.gouv.fr
Shortened link to our special issue “2024 Cyclonic Season – FAXINFO”: CYCLONIC MAP 2024
https://faxinfo.fr/en/saison-cyclonique-dispositif-fr-alert-100-de-reussite-chez-dauphin-telecom-et-orange/
