Barbarella wrote: So I live really close to an army depot that has stored nerve gas (mustard gas, GB, VX) since the 1940s, and started the process of destroying it a year or so ago. If something goes wrong and it gets out in large quantities, folks would die - that being said, there's several layers of protection, huge staff, lots of safety precautions to prevent a leak. The odds of it happening are slim, but it's always in the back of all of our minds.
Yesterday the emergency management team was trying to issue a Golden Alert text (missing senior citizen), and accidentally sent out the "LOCAL EMERGENCY PREPARE FOR ACTION" text instead and everyone immediately thought something had happened at the depot.
Folks were straight up packing bug-out bags, rounding their kids up, like waiting for the word to evacuate to the hills.
Moral of the story is, next time you feel like you've fucked up real bad at work - remember, you didn't send an entire town into a life-or-death panic by accidentally forgetting to check a box on a computer.
Barbarella wrote: it coulda been really a lot worse lol you know how many yeehaw rednecks are gung-ho to start shootin' and hoardin' in any emergency? looool we don't even have a real grocery store other than the walmart so had they not gotten the follow up text out in time, we woulda been a town without food here real fast.
Sylvan wrote: Have I become numb to bad things happening that this doesn't seem like that big a deal to me?
I mean, an actual nerve gas leak could kill anyone near the depot in as soon as ten minutes. And this area is so small we all live "near" it.
We literally get calendars every year with beautiful nature images from the depot, with evacuation details in them, they send us rolls of plastic every year or so for covering up our windows in case of emergency, etc.