Tsunami emergency texts: Who makes the call on alerting and why are some phones shrieking at their owners in US accents? 5 Mar, 2021 03:39 PM 4 minutes to read It comes down to one person pushing a button - before a lot of people get a big surprise. The decision to issue mobile alerts after events such as Friday's earthquakes is reserved for trained operators in a few agencies. And if people don't get one when they think they should have - they're not shy at letting people know. A Civil Defence alert message on Friday morning came to Gisborne residents three hours after a severe 7.1-magnitude earthquake shook them awake.