I'm in Arkansas, with an Arkansas area code on my phone, and got it to. With no location information. It also wasn't an Amber Alert. I have those turned off. It came in as an "Extreme threat to life or property" alert. (There's also a "Severe threat to life or property" alert setting, with the "Extreme" being the more serious.) In the past, those have gone off only for natural disasters. I'd prefer to keep them active, but if they're going to be used whenever some senior citizen or disabled person wanders away from their keepers, I'll have to turn them off as well.