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UAE emergency alerts: Why warnings don't always mean 'disaster'
Emirati writer Yasser Hareb urged residents to fight fear with logic, explaining why the mathematical probability of personal risk is extremely low
- PUBLISHED: Tue 10 Mar 2026, 3:12 PM UPDATED: Tue 10 Mar 2026, 3:16 PM
[Editor's Note: Follow Khaleej Times' live blog amid US-Israel-Iran war for the latest regional developments.]
As emergency alerts flash across phones of UAE residents amid ongoing Iranian missile and drone attacks in the region, many residents instinctively assume the worst-case scenario.
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It is a natural human response. When people sense danger, the brain's amygdala — the region responsible for processing fear — becomes highly active. According to Clevelandclinic.org, fear is the main emotion controlled by the amygdala, which helps the brain quickly identify potential threats.
But emergency alerts should not always be interpreted as a sign that disaster is imminent. Emirati writer Yasser Hareb recently addressed the issue in a viral video shared on his Instagram account, explaining why governments send such warnings.
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"Why does the government send all these emergency alerts and warnings?" he asked. "It's because it's their duty to keep you safe and protect you from any danger." An alert, he stressed, does not mean a missile or disaster is going to strike. "It simply means take precautions. This is a fundamental principle for any responsible government to ensure public safety and the normal flow of life."
Figures released by the UAE Ministry of Defence highlight the severity of the current threat, but also the effectiveness of the country's air defence systems. Since the start of what authorities have described as "blatant Iranian aggression" on February 28, 253 ballistic missiles have been detected. Of these, 233 were intercepted and destroyed, while 18 fell into the sea and two landed on the country's territory. Additionally, 1,440 Iranian drones were detected, and 1,359 of them were intercepted, while 81 fell within the country's territory, and 8 cruise missiles were also detected and destroyed.
Probability explained
Hareb, who is also a drama producer, said these figures show that the "UAE has intercepted 94.5 per cent of projectiles" so far.
"Now, out of the remaining 5.5 per cent, what is the probability that a missile or a drone actually hits your house?" he asked.
To put the risk in perspective, he noted that the chance of dying in a car crash is about 1 in 29,000, while the risk of dying from these projectiles is 1 in 3.8 million.
"We tend to ignore the probabilities when faced with a threat that triggers strong emotions within us," he said. "Our brain focuses entirely on the horror of the outcome and ignore the likelihood of it actually happening."
Instead of calculating the extremely small odds of a missile hitting your house — which is roughly 0.0000266 per cent — the mind jumps straight to imagining the worst-case scenario, he explained.
"This is where emotions overpower logic," he added.
The TV presenter added that warnings are meant to help people prepare, not to confirm "that a catastrophe will happen".
"Think about it logically," he said. "If governments only warned people about massive, guaranteed disasters, it would have not warned us about the heavy rain or rough seas. A warning is a preventative tool and not a confirmation that a catastrophe will happen."
Watch the full video here:
