What is this "television" you speak of?
Srsly yes we have all that, over-ride messages on TV and radio, and, for the last year or two, we have had the logistics in place to send warning SMSs to all phones, but it was stalled because different levels of government were arguing about who would have to pay for it.
IMHO this wouldn't have helped on the day - the problem was that in some cases specific warnings were not issued when they might have been, not that they didn't get through.