They test them monthly here. They send a test alert message to phones twice a year, usually on the same time they test the sirens. I still take them very seriously because they basically never go off outside of the test. If and when they do it's because they need me to take action.
The uses I can recall is a couple times for a big industrial fire where chemicals were getting in the air (so close your windows) and once because it was getting WAY too busy in Amsterdam (so for the love of god turn your car around you're not getting in to the party).
Testing these systems isn't what causes crying-wolf syndrome. It's testing them in a way that's hard to check if it's a test. It's sending alerts for unactionable nonsense. I'd be disabling my alerts too if they decided sending missing child notifications was a good use of the system.
The uses I can recall is a couple times for a big industrial fire where chemicals were getting in the air (so close your windows) and once because it was getting WAY too busy in Amsterdam (so for the love of god turn your car around you're not getting in to the party).
Testing these systems isn't what causes crying-wolf syndrome. It's testing them in a way that's hard to check if it's a test. It's sending alerts for unactionable nonsense. I'd be disabling my alerts too if they decided sending missing child notifications was a good use of the system.