Here I Am... Please Don't Rock Me Like A Hurricane

A few minutes ago, I downloaded three more weather radar apps onto my iPhone X. Why? Well, I am lucky enough and unlucky enough to life 20 feet from the Sound in the Florida Panhandle. We are in a condominium complex where the bottom floor if all storage units, then my floor, and the top floor with only 14 total units. I love my home and the fact that it is on a dead end next to a bird sanctuary, but hurricane season brings inevitable anxiety that makes me question why I chose to live here. Let me be more specific; I wonder why my husband chose to live here and I went along with it. Anyone who has gone house shopping with a spouse can probably relate to one of the two of you being very particular and picky about what they want in a home. Don’t get me wrong, I get it. You are spending every day in this place for the foreseeable future and it is where you will raise and/or take care of your family. For us our family consists of two cats, two dogs, and of course the two of us so we didn’t need some of the things that families with human children want in a home. We wanted somewhere with a good view and not too big – but also not too small. Somehow, we ended up where we are now, living in the first place of the over a dozen homes we looked at because everywhere was “too normal” for my husband. I have lived in Florida for about 15 years now and he has lived here for a bit over 5 years and for some reason neither one of us thought about hurricane season. We saw the beautiful view and my husband found what would make him happy inside the unit so ours lives were signed away into a mortgage.

I am sitting here now, after two years of living in this condo, wondering why on earth we didn’t consider hurricane season. The second year I lived in Florida we were hit by Hurricane Ivan – so how could I forget about that damage? Last year we dealt with our first real go of things concerning hurricanes and this year is off to a very similar start. But here is the bright side of living in the digital age: I can follow nearly every move of Hurricane Michael and now exactly how much I need to prepare (barring any significant changes). I can find out which gas stations still have fuel and which stores have been cleaned out of their bottled water and canned food. I can keep up with what roads have flooded or if my office has been closed for the day before I start my 45-minute commute to work.

Another leg up that digital technology gives me in hurricane season is something that I experienced this morning: the emergency alert system. Anyone with a smartphone, particularly an iPhone, has at one point been startled out of a sound sleep by the emergency notification screaming at them. That absolutely blaring siren emanating from your smartphone is the pocket-sized modern tornado alarm. Keep in mind though that the emergency alert system that shoots through your cellphone is not just for weather, it is for things like amber alerts and shooting alerts as well. Digital technology is striving to keep all of us safer by keeping us in the know and aware of our surroundings. Apple has added a feature to their newer iPhones where if you press the lock button 5 times quickly or hold down the lock and volume button for two seconds you can call emergency services. With this feature someone can contact 911 without actually going through the process of unlocking their phone. Have you ever tried to unlock a touchscreen phone in a panic? Let me tell you from experience that it is NOT an easy task. Your mind is occupied with something else, something much more stressful, and your fingers tend to slip or flail about on the screen. Then, the more times you enter the wrong passcode the more flustered a person can become and eventually if you cannot get your passcode correct then your phone will completely lock you out. By creating this alternate way to contact emergency services Apple is attempting to keep their consumers safe. People focus on the negative aspects of digital technology but seem to forget about the stride’s companies have made in an effort to keep their customers not only satisfied but safe as well. We have talked about data mining and the ways you can be tracked through not only your browser history but also purchases you make online and offline. Online predators and “catfishing” are ever present worries and the threat of bank accounts or credit cards being hacked are in the back of any modern consumer’s mind. Don’t get me wrong, I am a realist and I understand that big businesses have their own interests in mind and are always mindful of their profits. They are a business and not a charity so if they want to keep their lights on they need to sell their product – ethics are not always a top priority.

But let’s stay on the positive side here and give these multi-billion-dollar industries the very slight benefit of the doubt. Look at the reality of the situation: businesses need profit, but they also need customers, so it makes smart business sense to keep their customers safe if it will lead to continued sales and a good reputation. Another thing I have talked about on this blog is the importance of reputation to any business and how reputation can strengthen or hinder them. By keeping their customers safe and highlighting those advanced safety features, Apple and many other companies show how their technology helps people.

All these different examples of digital technology aim to lift up the world and people around it by keeping them safe in a variety of ways. Today I am utilizing weather radar apps on my iPhone, tomorrow I might use the emergency SOS system or avoid a disaster on the roads. I am not an ignorant person and I know that the world is not always a good place. Digital technology can definitely be used for harm instead of help and twisted by the most cunning minds. But with the oncoming severe weather I am choosing to look at the positive things that digital technology has given me. I will keep using my multiple weather apps to attempt to prepare for the incoming storm and, with the help of digital technology, not be taken by surprise.