How to never miss an emergency alert from shootings to wildfires

Your phone could save your life.

There is no shortage of drawbacks of having a needy pocket computer follow you around 24 hours a day. There is the eyestrain, sleep disruption, erosion of privacy, no work-life balance and a busted attention span. But our phones have also made speedy emergency warnings the norm, whether they're about an active shooter, wildfire, chemical spill or abducted child.

The exact options vary by location and where you work or go to school. Here are some basics on what alerts you can sign up for or opt out of.

Wireless emergency alerts

You are probably already set up to receive the really important alerts on your phone without knowing it. The United States has had a wireless emergency alert system since 2012, used for everything from natural disaster warnings to missing person alerts. There are a few main types of wireless emergency alerts: national alerts, imminent threats, Amber alerts and public safety notifications. You can opt out of or customize some of them in your phone's settings, and they show up as a simple push alert on your device's screen.

The most urgent and rarely used is a Presidential Alert, which cannot be turned off. This has only been tested once and not used for an actual emergency so far. The FCC is renaming this category the National Alert this year and expanding it to include alerts from the FEMA administrator.

The threat alerts can be sent by various government agencies like the National Weather Service or law enforcement and targeted according to your phone's current location. These might include evacuation warnings during a hurricane or wildfire or a shelter-in-place warning during a mass shooting or bombing. Finally, there are Amber alerts used help to find minors who may have been abducted. All are typically based on where you are at the moment, so if you travel you will get alerts relevant to your latest location.

If you use an Android device, you have a bit more control. In Settings, you have to look for a section called Wireless Emergency Alerts or Cell Broadcasts. If your Settings screen has a search bar, use it to search for this faster. You should be able to turn on or off alerts for Extreme Threats and Severe Threats separately, as well as Amber alerts.

Additional local alerts

The built-in alerts on your phone will cover the biggest disasters, but they're only the tip of the iceberg, to stick with disaster metaphors. To get more frequent and detailed alerts, sign up for everything your local governments have to offer. Many of these systems are run by systems like Nixle, a text-based emergency alert system. You can try to opt in directly by texting your ZIP code to 888777.

Next, Google your state name and "emergency alerts." Depending on what kind of natural disasters your area is prone to, you might get different options.

Your local department of emergency management should offer ways to sign up for more alerts.

School and work updates

If you are a student, check with your school about its own alert system and sign up if one is available. When schools have their own security or campus law enforcement, these alerts might be the fastest way to get updates about things like campus shootings.

Larger companies are also increasingly likely to have their own emergency systems, including text alerts. Similar to schools, these are helpful when you work in person on a sprawling campus or even in a warehouse.

Neighborhood crime alerts