No online information during storms
 

I'd like to congratulate National Rail, Transport for London, Southern
Trains and the BBC for all failing to provide any kind of up-to-date
travel information on station closures during the storms on Thursday.

The National Rail website (the definitive source for rail service
disruption) completely failed to mention that London Bridge station had
been closed for most of the day. It still had no mention of this at
18:00 so myself and many other thousands of commuters made an
unnecessary journey to the station only to find we had to make
alternative arrangements to get home.

Meanwhile, the only service disruption listed on the TFL journey planner
website under "Trains" was on the line to Stratford. One incident. The
TFL "SMS alerts" service kindly informed me that a reduced escalator
service was in operation at London Bridge until Feb. Thanks for that.

Trumping them all was the BBC London travel website, which listed "no
current problems reports" on the railways!

With the weather taking the Southern website offline, the National Rail
enquiries phoneline ringing engaged, incorrect information on the most
common websites; commuters had woeful travel information on how to plan
their journeys.

I'm amazed that with the technology at our disposal these days not one
of these organisations with billion pound budgets could get it right.

Regards,


Neil


Web hosting, dedicated servers, Exchange & SharePoint
www.purleyhosting.com

No online information during storms
 

"Neil Spellings" wrote in message
.. .
I'd like to congratulate National Rail, Transport for London, Southern
Trains and the BBC for all failing to provide any kind of up-to-date
travel information on station closures during the storms on Thursday.

LARGE SNIP

Trumping them all was the BBC London travel website, which listed "no
current problems reports" on the railways!

With the weather taking the Southern website offline, the National Rail
enquiries phoneline ringing engaged, incorrect information on the most
common websites; commuters had woeful travel information on how to plan
their journeys.

I'm amazed that with the technology at our disposal these days not one of
these organisations with billion pound budgets could get it right.

Slightly unfair on the BBC. They do after all get their info second hand
from the TOC's.
--
Ken Ward

"Society for the production of Maritime Reefs using MerseyRail 142's"
(For membership email... )

No online information during storms
 

Ken Ward wrote:
"Neil Spellings" wrote in message
.. .
I'd like to congratulate National Rail, Transport for London, Southern
Trains and the BBC for all failing to provide any kind of up-to-date
travel information on station closures during the storms on Thursday.

LARGE SNIP
Trumping them all was the BBC London travel website, which listed "no
current problems reports" on the railways!

Slightly unfair on the BBC. They do after all get their info second hand
from the TOC's.


And the travel reports on BBC London 94.9 were extended, comprehensive
and accurate and quite entertaining if reading all the station names
quickly without making errors is a sport.

Agree about nationalrail.co.uk - I checked it closely to find "we have
no information" and "there is a problem with the system" messages
galore. I trudged to the station (Effingham Junction) to find a small
note on the door saying "There are no trains, If you find a way to
complete your journey apply for compensation"

sigh. I guess it was the "wrong kind of storm"

mysteryflyer

No online information during storms
 

The BBC had a special page on it, it's still the
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/..._feature.shtml

No online information during storms
 

Neil Spellings wrote:
I'd like to congratulate National Rail, Transport for London, Southern
Trains and the BBC for all failing to provide any kind of up-to-date
travel information on station closures during the storms on Thursday.

Well I can't comment on TfL or Southern, but I thought NRES and the BBC
did a pretty good job on Thursday. I should think both were getting a
hundred times the normal number of hits, probably even more, and the
NRES system only fell over for about an hour or so. (The "Current
Service Alterations" page kept going but "Live Arrivals and Departures"
froze for a while.)

And, as with any operating difficulty on the railway, the problem is
more about getting the information from the people on the ground than
disseminating it to the passengers. It's no use asking somebody like
Ross how long his train is going to be delayed while he's still
underneath it with his Junior Hacksaw.
--
Joyce Whitchurch, Stalybridge, UK
=================================

No online information during storms
 

"Joyce Whitchurch" wrote in message
...
Neil Spellings wrote:
I'd like to congratulate National Rail, Transport for London, Southern
Trains and the BBC for all failing to provide any kind of up-to-date
travel information on station closures during the storms on Thursday.

Well I can't comment on TfL or Southern, but I thought NRES and the BBC
did a pretty good job on Thursday. I should think both were getting a
hundred times the normal number of hits, probably even more, and the NRES
system only fell over for about an hour or so. (The "Current Service
Alterations" page kept going but "Live Arrivals and Departures" froze for
a while.)

And, as with any operating difficulty on the railway, the problem is more
about getting the information from the people on the ground than
disseminating it to the passengers. It's no use asking somebody like Ross
how long his train is going to be delayed while he's still underneath it
with his Junior Hacksaw.
--
Joyce Whitchurch, Stalybridge, UK
=================================
To which he might have replied, as a driver of my acquaintance did 'A
F****** sight quicker if I didn't have to keep answering the radio'
Brian

No online information during storms
 

Neil Spellings wrote:

The National Rail website (the definitive source for rail service
disruption) completely failed to mention that London Bridge station had
been closed for most of the day.

It was NOT closed for ''most of the day''.

It was open at least until 13:30 - well over half the day - and I know
that because I used it three times in the morning and the 4th time
departing at 13:30.

I'm amazed that with the technology at our disposal these days not one
of these organisations with billion pound budgets could get it right.

Have you considered those people who input data into those systems were
affected by rail travel and had disrupted work journies?

A lot of rail control rooms and CIS/PIS offices and so on work a 24/7
three shift pattern. Most shifts change at 14:00 +/- 1 h. Those coming
on duty for the pm shift were probably caught up in travel problems at
the height of the winds. Thats certainly when I was travelling away
from a meeting in London and when I got cought with a 1 h joourney from
London Bridge to Luton taking instead 3.5 hours via bus via Golders
Green.

No matter how good the technology is, report writing of specific
disruptions is a manual task. The system probably went into overload
and understaff.


--
Nick

No online information during storms
 

The TFL website had difficulties updating due to the volume of hits or
the amount of changes being made, not sure which.

No online information during storms
 

No online information during storms
 

On 20 Jan 2007 04:18:25 -0800, "D7666" wrote:


Neil Spellings wrote:

The National Rail website (the definitive source for rail service
disruption) completely failed to mention that London Bridge station had
been closed for most of the day.

It was NOT closed for ''most of the day''.

It was open at least until 13:30 - well over half the day - and I know
that because I used it three times in the morning and the 4th time
departing at 13:30.

Someone I know arrived from C+ at about 6:30, at which point they were
just in the process of shutting it.

No online information during storms
 

On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:29:27 +0000, Mystery Flyer
wrote:

wrote:
The TFL website had difficulties updating due to the volume of hits or
the amount of changes being made, not sure which.

Both of which would have been acceptable in 1994 at the dawn of the
Internet but really arent acceptable excuses in 2007

Internet traffic is liable to grow faster than the infrastructure can
cope with it, in the same way that motor vehicle traffic has proven to
grow faster than the infrastructure can cope with it.

No online information during storms
 

On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 11:26:29 -0000 someone who may be "BH Williams"
wrote this:-

It's no use asking somebody like Ross
how long his train is going to be delayed while he's still underneath it
with his Junior Hacksaw.

To which he might have replied, as a driver of my acquaintance did 'A
F****** sight quicker if I didn't have to keep answering the radio'

A long time ago off Norway a Royal Navy destroyer was stationary, a
German shell having smashed the main steam pipe to the engines.
Given that the objectives of a warship captain are for the ship to
float, move and fight (in that order) this was not a happy
situation.

While the engineering people were desperately trying to get some
boilers going and connected to the engines they stationed a seaman
at the voice pipe to the bridge. The first time the bridge asked how
long it would be the seaman asked the engineering people, added a
bit more time and passed it on. After that the seaman didn't bother
asking, he just deducted roughly the amount of time that had passed
since the last time and passed that back, in an increasingly curt
fashion.

That wouldn't always be possible on a driver only train, especially
as "safety" frowns on asking passengers to help these days. However,
a spare member of staff or the guard might be able to deal with some
of these enquiries.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

No online information during storms
 

James Farrar wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:29:27 +0000, Mystery Flyer
wrote:

wrote:
The TFL website had difficulties updating due to the volume of hits or
the amount of changes being made, not sure which.

Both of which would have been acceptable in 1994 at the dawn of the
Internet but really arent acceptable excuses in 2007

Internet traffic is liable to grow faster than the infrastructure can
cope with it, in the same way that motor vehicle traffic has proven to
grow faster than the infrastructure can cope with it.

Buying hardware and bandwidth for your portal to cope with spikes in
demand is a well understood aspect of the provision of Internet based
services.

Its an entirely different case to the whole demand growing over time
beyond what the infrastructure can cope with.

mysteryflyer

No online information during storms
 

"Mystery Flyer" wrote in message
...
James Farrar wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:29:27 +0000, Mystery Flyer
wrote:

wrote:
The TFL website had difficulties updating due to the volume of
hits or
the amount of changes being made, not sure which.

Both of which would have been acceptable in 1994 at the dawn of
the Internet but really arent acceptable excuses in 2007

Internet traffic is liable to grow faster than the infrastructure
can
cope with it, in the same way that motor vehicle traffic has proven
to
grow faster than the infrastructure can cope with it.

Buying hardware and bandwidth for your portal to cope with spikes in
demand is a well understood aspect of the provision of Internet
based services.

Its an entirely different case to the whole demand growing over time
beyond what the infrastructure can cope with.


Look moron, if the severity of the storm had been known of in advance
(I don't think God works for any TOC...) they would have made
provision...

Start using your remaining brain cell rather than showing the world
how many dead one you have.

No online information during storms
 

:Jerry: wrote:
"Mystery Flyer" wrote in message
...
James Farrar wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:29:27 +0000, Mystery Flyer
wrote:

wrote:
The TFL website had difficulties updating due to the volume of
hits or
the amount of changes being made, not sure which.

Both of which would have been acceptable in 1994 at the dawn of
the Internet but really arent acceptable excuses in 2007
Internet traffic is liable to grow faster than the infrastructure
can
cope with it, in the same way that motor vehicle traffic has proven
to
grow faster than the infrastructure can cope with it.
Buying hardware and bandwidth for your portal to cope with spikes in
demand is a well understood aspect of the provision of Internet
based services.

Its an entirely different case to the whole demand growing over time
beyond what the infrastructure can cope with.


Look moron, if the severity of the storm had been known of in advance
(I don't think God works for any TOC...) they would have made
provision...

Start using your remaining brain cell rather than showing the world
how many dead one you have.


Thanks so much for the mindful contribution to the discussion. Are you
connected to Endemol ?

No online information during storms
 

:Jerry: wrote:
"big snip
Its an entirely different case to the whole demand growing over time
beyond what the infrastructure can cope with.


Look moron, if the severity of the storm had been known of in advance
(I don't think God works for any TOC...) they would have made
provision...

Start using your remaining brain cell rather than showing the world
how many dead one you have.


Thanks so much for the insightful contribution to the discussion. Its
really refreshing to have such profound commentary.

I wonder, are you connected to Endemol at all? They need strategic
thinkers I understand to help with their product positioning.

mysteryflyer

No online information during storms
 

:Jerry: wrote:

Look moron, if the severity of the storm had been known of in advance
(I don't think God works for any TOC...) they would have made
provision...

Actually the severity of the storm was fairly accurately predicted as early
as last Sunday, when the BBC1 "Countryfile" long-range forecast for the week
was predicting severe gale force winds for late Wednesday night into the
Thursday morning rush hour (actually the arrival was a few hours delayed)
with structural damage and severe disruption to transport on Thursday
morning.

No online information during storms
 

:Jerry: wrote:

Look moron, if the severity of the storm had been known of in advance
(I don't think God works for any TOC...) they would have made
provision...

Aside from the fact that the severity was known in advance (Hint: its
called a Weather Forecast - look it up in the dictionary) , wtf has the
storm got to do with whether a website can cope with a spike in the
number of hits? Did you think the webserver took one look out the
window and thought "bugger this , I'm not serving any pages till this
blows over"??

B2003

No online information during storms
 

I'd like to congratulate National Rail, Transport for London, Southern
Trains and the BBC for all failing to provide any kind of up-to-date
travel information on station closures during the storms on Thursday.

TFL Realtime travel news page
(http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/realtime/?mode=tube&time=now) was working at
18:00 with up-to-date information for Tube and DLR. They replaced usual
graphics with text-only page, but it worked.

No online information during storms
 

alex_t wrote:
TFL Realtime travel news page
(http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/realtime/?mode=tube&time=now) was working at
18:00 with up-to-date information for Tube and DLR. They replaced usual
graphics with text-only page, but it worked.

I was a bit disappointed by the info on the FCC website on Friday,
which had lots of individual bulletins but no simple summary saying
what was happening *right now*. Having to read 4 or 5 service updates
and line updates is rather conffusing at the best of times. It wasn't
helped by a service bulletin that hadn't been removed from earlier in
the week!

Colleagues at work were looking at their respective TOC sites and most
had gone for the single page, plain text, pages to help cope with
demand. Even the Journey Check had simplified itself for some of the
day on Thursday. Overall, I think everything was done incredibly well
on Thursday, given the circumstances, but Friday was a bit more of a
mess as the 'clean up' took place.

Jonathan

No online information during storms
 

"Mystery Flyer" wrote in message
...
:Jerry: wrote:
"Mystery Flyer" wrote in message
...
James Farrar wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:29:27 +0000, Mystery Flyer
wrote:

wrote:
The TFL website had difficulties updating due to the volume of
hits or
the amount of changes being made, not sure which.

Both of which would have been acceptable in 1994 at the dawn of
the Internet but really arent acceptable excuses in 2007
Internet traffic is liable to grow faster than the infrastructure
can
cope with it, in the same way that motor vehicle traffic has
proven to
grow faster than the infrastructure can cope with it.
Buying hardware and bandwidth for your portal to cope with spikes
in demand is a well understood aspect of the provision of Internet
based services.

Its an entirely different case to the whole demand growing over
time beyond what the infrastructure can cope with.


Look moron, if the severity of the storm had been known of in
advance (I don't think God works for any TOC...) they would have
made provision...

Start using your remaining brain cell rather than showing the world
how many dead one you have.
Thanks so much for the mindful contribution to the discussion. Are
you connected to Endemol ?

In comparison, you come a close second to Jade Goody in not using your
brain.

No online information during storms
 

"Jack Taylor" wrote in message
...
:Jerry: wrote:

Look moron, if the severity of the storm had been known of in
advance
(I don't think God works for any TOC...) they would have made
provision...

Actually the severity of the storm was fairly accurately predicted
as early as last Sunday, when the BBC1 "Countryfile" long-range
forecast for the week was predicting severe gale force winds for
late Wednesday night into the Thursday morning rush hour (actually
the arrival was a few hours delayed) with structural damage and
severe disruption to transport on Thursday morning.

Err, no they got it wrong, 'severe gale force winds' is not the same
as 'severe storm force winds' which is what we got - only on the night
before was there any mention of 'severe storm force winds' (bordering
on hurricane force).

No online information during storms
 

Jonathan Morris wrote:

alex_t wrote:
TFL Realtime travel news page
(http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/realtime/?mode=tube&time=now) was working at
18:00 with up-to-date information for Tube and DLR. They replaced usual
graphics with text-only page, but it worked.

I was a bit disappointed by the info on the FCC website on Friday,
which had lots of individual bulletins but no simple summary saying
what was happening *right now*. Having to read 4 or 5 service updates
and line updates is rather conffusing at the best of times. It wasn't
helped by a service bulletin that hadn't been removed from earlier in
the week!

Colleagues at work were looking at their respective TOC sites and most
had gone for the single page, plain text, pages to help cope with
demand. Even the Journey Check had simplified itself for some of the
day on Thursday. Overall, I think everything was done incredibly well
on Thursday, given the circumstances, but Friday was a bit more of a
mess as the 'clean up' took place.

Jonathan

I agree. Online information was virtually non existant.
I tried to travel on SWTtrains from Waterloo after 6 on the day.

I had the feeling there would be no trains at Waterloo but the SWTrains
website made little mention of the fact.
However, they had been updating it, and made reference to the storms
and the shut lines.

But no mention of the fact that next to no trains were running from
Waterloo that evening.
Luckily I had the option of the District line and a bus to get me home.
And that seemed to run okay despite the Tube.com saying there was sever
disruption.

I felt very sorry for the people who didn't have the option of the tube
to get home that night.

No online information during storms
 

Jonathan Morris wrote:

alex_t wrote:
TFL Realtime travel news page
(http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/realtime/?mode=tube&time=now) was working at
18:00 with up-to-date information for Tube and DLR. They replaced usual
graphics with text-only page, but it worked.

I was a bit disappointed by the info on the FCC website on Friday,
which had lots of individual bulletins but no simple summary saying
what was happening *right now*. Having to read 4 or 5 service updates
and line updates is rather conffusing at the best of times. It wasn't
helped by a service bulletin that hadn't been removed from earlier in
the week!

Colleagues at work were looking at their respective TOC sites and most
had gone for the single page, plain text, pages to help cope with
demand. Even the Journey Check had simplified itself for some of the
day on Thursday. Overall, I think everything was done incredibly well
on Thursday, given the circumstances, but Friday was a bit more of a
mess as the 'clean up' took place.

Jonathan

I agree. Online information was virtually non existant.
I tried to travel on SWTtrains from Waterloo after 6 on the day.

I had the feeling there would be no trains at Waterloo but the SWTrains
website made little mention of the fact.
However, they had been updating it, and made reference to the storms
and the shut lines.

But no mention of the fact that next to no trains were running from
Waterloo that evening.
Luckily I had the option of the District line and a bus to get me home.
And that seemed to run okay despite the Tube.com saying there was sever
disruption.

I felt very sorry for the people who didn't have the option of the tube
to get home that night.

No online information during storms
 

"BH Williams" wrote in message
...

"Joyce Whitchurch" wrote in message
...
Neil Spellings wrote:
I'd like to congratulate National Rail, Transport for London, Southern
Trains and the BBC for all failing to provide any kind of up-to-date
travel information on station closures during the storms on Thursday.

Well I can't comment on TfL or Southern, but I thought NRES and the BBC
did a pretty good job on Thursday. I should think both were getting a
hundred times the normal number of hits, probably even more, and the NRES
system only fell over for about an hour or so. (The "Current Service
Alterations" page kept going but "Live Arrivals and Departures" froze for
a while.)

And, as with any operating difficulty on the railway, the problem is more
about getting the information from the people on the ground than
disseminating it to the passengers. It's no use asking somebody like Ross
how long his train is going to be delayed while he's still underneath it
with his Junior Hacksaw.
--
Joyce Whitchurch, Stalybridge, UK
=================================
To which he might have replied, as a driver of my acquaintance did 'A
F****** sight quicker if I didn't have to keep answering the radio'
Brian


Done something similar myself. Major Aircon failure in a data centre and
some senior idiot
ringing 5 minutes - told him that we'd get sorted a lot quicker if he got
off the phone and also
that if he didn't stop his onsite muppet poking around inside aircon units
he would be held responsible
for a few million pounds worth of Disaster Recovery charges ( he also
thought two comms
cables into one cabinet was adequate DR contingency........ A bit like the
government organisation
that invoked DR after their backup generators ran out of diesel - and then
discovered that their
plan didn't work!).

G

No online information during storms
 

:Jerry: wrote:

Err, no they got it wrong, 'severe gale force winds' is not the same
as 'severe storm force winds' which is what we got - only on the night
before was there any mention of 'severe storm force winds' (bordering
on hurricane force).

Did you see the "Countryfile" forecast? Do you know that they got it wrong?
Perhaps I got it wrong? Unlike yourself, I'm not perfect enough to remember
the *exact* wording from a week ago. They did (whatever term they used)
forecast structural damage and severe disruption to transport last Sunday -
which *IS* what we got.

No online information during storms
 

In article . com,
(Boltar) wrote:

:Jerry: wrote:

Look moron, if the severity of the storm had been known of in
advance (I don't think God works for any TOC...) they would have made
provision...

Aside from the fact that the severity was known in advance (Hint:
its called a Weather Forecast - look it up in the dictionary) , wtf has

the storm got to do with whether a website can cope with a spike in the
number of hits? Did you think the webserver took one look out the
window and thought "bugger this , I'm not serving any pages till
this blows over"??

That's what the live departures bit of the NRES site seemed to have done.
Either that or it was blown over at about 4.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

No online information during storms
 

:Jerry: wrote:
snip
Its an entirely different case to the whole demand growing over
time beyond what the infrastructure can cope with.

Look moron, if the severity of the storm had been known of in
advance (I don't think God works for any TOC...) they would have
made provision...

Start using your remaining brain cell rather than showing the world
how many dead one you have.
Thanks so much for the mindful contribution to the discussion. Are
you connected to Endemol ?

In comparison, you come a close second to Jade Goody in not using your
brain.

Is that even a sentence?

No online information during storms
 

On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:19:13 GMT someone who may be "Jack Taylor"
wrote this:-

Did you see the "Countryfile" forecast? Do you know that they got it wrong?
Perhaps I got it wrong? Unlike yourself, I'm not perfect enough to remember
the *exact* wording from a week ago. They did (whatever term they used)
forecast structural damage and severe disruption to transport last Sunday -
which *IS* what we got.

Remember that, like many other organisations, the railways pay for
far more detailed weather forecasts than are given on the
television. These are usually very accurate and the railways seem to
have done what was possible to deal with the weather. I'm sure
nearly everyone would have liked more to be possible, but there are
limits to the money and staff that are available. I also doubt if
anyone would like to go back to the era of several staff deaths
keeping trains running at normal speeds in bad weather.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

No online information during storms
 

David Hansen wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:19:13 GMT someone who may be "Jack Taylor"
wrote this:-

Did you see the "Countryfile" forecast? Do you know that they got it wrong?
Perhaps I got it wrong? Unlike yourself, I'm not perfect enough to remember
the *exact* wording from a week ago. They did (whatever term they used)
forecast structural damage and severe disruption to transport last Sunday -
which *IS* what we got.

Remember that, like many other organisations, the railways pay for
far more detailed weather forecasts than are given on the
television. These are usually very accurate and the railways seem to
have done what was possible to deal with the weather. I'm sure
nearly everyone would have liked more to be possible, but there are
limits to the money and staff that are available. I also doubt if
anyone would like to go back to the era of several staff deaths
keeping trains running at normal speeds in bad weather.



Is is just me, or does the NRES Web keep crashing Internet Explorer as
soon as one tries to use it? I have tried to enquire about the same
journey about ten times, and rebooted and tried again, and IE crashes
every time.

No online information during storms
 

"Neil Spellings" wrote in message
.. .
I'd like to congratulate National Rail, Transport for London, Southern
Trains and the BBC for all failing to provide any kind of up-to-date
travel information on station closures during the storms on Thursday.

SNIP

Neil


Web hosting, dedicated servers, Exchange & SharePoint
www.purleyhosting.com


For me, the highlight of the day was when I looked on the Southeastern
website to see if there was any information I could relay to my misses who
was stuck on one of their trains - it read

"The Southeastern website is currently down due to the volume of demand"

(I looked up the definition of irony in the dictionary afterwards)

Seems little point in having these systems that work when nobody needs them
but then they completely fail when they are needed.

No online information during storms
 

Not Rail I know, but both RAC.co.uk and trafficmap.co.uk sites seem to crash
providing the famous "page cannot be displayed". Just the one day of the
year when I need them to work too.

No online information during storms
 

In article , Frank Incense
writes
Not Rail I know, but both RAC.co.uk and trafficmap.co.uk sites seem to crash
providing the famous "page cannot be displayed". Just the one day of the
year when I need them to work too.



Quite..

Round this way BBC radio Cambs fell over on their VHF transmitter just
when I needed them for information!, but this is the best way of giving
out such info by Radio but there needs to be better coverage nation-
wide. For instance I was very interested in what "one" were up to around
the Stortford area, but their website fell over as did many other's and
BBC radio Essex was anally occupied with what was going on at Sarffend
on Sea seafront.. suppose it was more fun?..

As to anywhere else zilch. What's needed it seems is an emergency
channel radio system bit like radio autoroute in France on 107.7 MHz
IIRC.

Anyone should be able to receive the info they need especially mobile
AND at home, and work a battery wireless would take far, far less
current than a PC useful if your lights have gone out!..

However this would require some disaster planning ..something the UK
isn't that good at.....
--
Tony Sayer