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If you were in Johannesburg today, you probably received a mail containing something along the lines of this:

“Netcare has issued a warning in respect of a storm that will hit the Gauteng region this afternoon at about 5 o clock.

Don’t underestimate the strength of the wind on the road and avoid low water bridges when driving. We were also warned to stay indoors and to take all loose lying objects inside. Tie down anything that might be damaged by severe winds.”

Or even this:

“Hi All,

In the interest of your Health and Safety and that of your loved ones, please be aware that the South African Weather Services has issued a high importance Warning to Gauteng regarding serious storms TODAY, 08 October 2007. They have advised that motorists avoid travelling between 18:00 and 20:00 today. Please try to get home safely BEFORE the storms begin.

National Warning – Issued on Monday, 8 October 2007 at 06.00

Very cold conditions are expected to persist over the highground areas of Western and Northern Cape, as well as over the northern mountains of Eastern Cape and south-western and western interior of KwaZulu-Natal.

Heavy falls of rain are expected over northern KwaZulu-Natal, north-eastern Free State as well as the eastern highveld of Mpumalanga and Gauteng. Severe thunderstorms, associated with strong, damaging surface winds are expected in late afternoon and evening over the eastern highveld, Gauteng, the southern highveld of Mpumalanga and extreme northern Free State.”

It even had us, at work, going at one stage, as City Power decided to add insult to injury by dropping our power, after we’ve been without water for more than a week.

The clouds built up and rumbled. It began looking rather ominous. And then… simply dissipated, leaving us with a clear sky and sunshine.

To the authors of those e-mails… a word of caution drawn from fable…

Don’t cry wolf… One day, when we really need to heed a warning, the ‘helpful’ mails being sent by those concerned for our well-being will be ignored.

All you did, today, was create a very effective denial of service attack on just about every website that offered some sort of weather forecast and cause many traffic jams as the more trusting folks tried to get home as quickly as possible to heed your faux warning.

Besides… do you really think that storm warnings would be broadcast via e-mail? A medium that not everyone has access to, let alone the fact that it is not a guaranteed delivery.

Surely this would be better broadcast via radio, television or better yet, SMS, something most South African’s have access to, as a majority of the population, even amongst those we may consider previously disadvantaged, seem to have a cellphone, these days.

The storm that broke was not meteorological in nature. It was a tide of anxious, frightened and later very frustrated and angry people who ended up stuck in traffic because someone thought it was a good idea to fuel the fires of people’s fears in light of very real tragedies that have happened to other people in more remote parts of our land, as recently as this last weekend.

Think before you click “Send”, next time.

Related links:

• The Citizen

• IOL