|
Technology, low costs draw smaller cities to emergency system
Telephone alerts - Investing in Web-based systems allow
for many residents to be called quickly
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
STEVE MAYES
OREGON CITY -- Several Oregon cities and counties are adding a tool -- a
high-speed Internet-based telephone system -- to warn people about dangerous situations,
find lost children or issue alerts about natural disasters.
Last month, Oregon City signed up for CodeRED, a system that can make
almost 100,000 calls an hour. For $15,000, the city gets two years of service
and 40,000 minutes of call time.
Lake Oswego, which purchased the same system, put it
into operation last fall. Milwaukie, West Linn and other mid-size
Portland-area cities are considering investing in the rapid-dial Automated telephone alerts are not new. The
Portland Police Bureau has had the capacity for years, as has Columbia
County. Washington County's 9-1-1 center offers the service to public safety
agencies countywide.
But advances in technology, relatively low costs and heightened interest
in homeland security are making the service increasingly attractive to small
cities.
Once trained, emergency services personnel can log on to a Web site, call
up a map, target the area to be notified, record a message and launch the
calls. The system can tell whether a call is answered by a person, voice
mail or a fax machine -- or goes unanswered. A database of phone numbers is
part of the package, and local jurisdictions can add new numbers.
"It doesn't guarantee every house is going to be hit, but it does
offer a tool that gets the word out super fast," said Battalion Chief
Larry Goff of the Lake Oswego Fire Department.
Oregon City could have used the system last month. After a man claimed he
left a bomb at a downtown bank, police scrambled to evacuate surrounding
buildings and keep people away from the area. A blitz of CodeRED calls could
have blanketed the downtown business district within minutes.
"An important component of handling an emergency is notifying
citizens of the emergency," said Oregon City Police Chief Gordon
Huiras. "Public safety workers still have to deal with the
emergency."
Likewise, Clackamas County could have used it last fall after a specialty
auto business on Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard exploded in flames that
spewed a cloud of toxic smoke. Sheriff's deputies drove down streets urging
people to stay indoors.
Clackamas County received a two-year grant from Tennessee-based Dialogic
Communications, a CodeRED competitor, last month.
Washington County contracts with Dialogic but rarely issues alerts.
"We've had some difficulties," said Scott
Porter, director of Washington County's Office of Consolidated Emergency
Management. The system was prompt in notifying a Forest Grove neighborhood
that a dangerous suspect had barricaded himself in his home. But when the
system was activated to warn of a natural gas leak, only a handful of
calls went out. Porter said additional training is needed to ensure
success.
Until we're comfortable we can do it right, we
haven't gone out and advertised it to the public," Porter said.
The potential of fast-dial services remain largely untapped.
School districts could use it to announce school closures. Cities can
use it to let people know about local emergencies, such as closed roads or
broken pipes. Police can use it to enlist neighbors to watch for a missing
child or notify residents when a sexual predator moves into an area.
During a snowstorm last month, St. Paul, Minn., used the CodeRED system
to make more than 130,000 calls in two hours asking people to move their
cars so streets could be plowed. The system seemed to work. During the
first snowfall last year, nearly 3,500 cars were ticketed, compared with
1,334 last month, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
When snow hit St. Paul again Friday, CodeRED kicked into gear and
thousands of phones started ringing again.
Steve Mayes: 503-294-5916; stevemayes@news.oregonian.com
|
