CIVIL ALERT!!!

Working at a TV station can be surreal sometimes, lol.

We have these Emergency Announcement Systems (EAS) that spit out tape alerting us when something is up. Usually, lately, it's Flash Flood Watches or Warnings, or Thunderstorm Warnings or other weather-related stuff. Every once in a while we'll get an Amber Alert -- which, if you don't know, is a warning system that happens in Texas when a child is abducted.

But usually, it's weather stuff.

Anyway, My Genius Friend Dave and I are the only ones left on our side of the station, and the EAS boxes start spitting out this tape.

Since it's usually weather, if there's no vocal message along with the tape, we tend to take our time reading the messages. 99 times out of 100 the message is something that doesn't require our immediate attention.

"The National Weather Service has issued a Gentle Breeze Warning for the following counties/areas: Williamson, Travis, etc. etc..."

Tonight's message was a bit alarming, though.

"A civil authority has issued a civil emergency message for the following counties/areas..."

A CIVIL EMERGENCY?!!

Like WHAT? Are zombies loose in the Hill Country?!! Has Jesus returned?!! Is a giant radioactive lizard rampaging Downtown Austin?!!

Luckily, whatever the civil emergency, the trouble didn't last long. It was issued at 11:24 pm until 11:54 pm. So whatever it was (he says giggling) it was over before midnight.

I'm sure it was just a glitch, because instead of saying, like, "The National Weather Service" or "The Travis Country Police Department" or something it said "A Civil Authority". And instead of saying "has issued a Tornado Warning" or "has issued an Amber Alert" it said "has issued a Civil Emergency Message".

But here's the weird part...

Working at the station, we're shut up in this relatively small room. There's a tiny, black-and-white security monitor that looks out at the side door (the one we come in and go out from).

We have NO IDEA what's going on in the outside world for the 10 hours we're at work.

When I got the message, I actually was quite creeped-out for, like, 30 seconds, lol.

To make things even more surreal, I stepped outside to have a smoke and see if there were any signs of weirdness (just to be as certain as possible that this was a glitch) and the night was just as quiet and empty as possible! I could hear sirens off in the distance somewhere, but there were very few cars passing. (Unusual, even for the middle of the night here.)

I little later I ran to jack In The Box to grab some grub, and there were the normal groups of young people wandering the drag.

So no civil emergency that I could observe, lol.

Still... The streets were a lot more empty and still than usual on a Friday night in Austin.

Blah.

Anyway...

It struck me as funny, because if I had any other job and any other shift, I wouldn't have experienced that split-second of surrealism.

And ya know... We all need a bit of surrealism in our lives, I think! :) It reminds us of that feeling we used to get when we were little and our parents told us a rabbit hops out and hides Easter eggs for us once a year, hehe. :D