[EAS] SoCal Alerts Missed 54% Of Target Calls During [Sonoma County] Wildfires

[Barry Mishkind]

>From http://www.insideradio.com/free/eas-alerts-missed-of-target-calls-during-wildfires/article_e57faba2-e55f-11e7-845d-47d25570cd2e.html

 

 

SoCal Alerts Missed 54% Of Target Calls During Wildfires

    * Dec 20, 2017

 Emergency Alert Phone

During the first hours of the deadly October wildfires that scorched much of Sonoma County, more than half of the telephone numbers in a database used to send government alerts to the public during emergencies failed to connect. The performance of the county’s warning system, SoCo Alert, was hindered by damaged cellphone towers and burned utility lines, according to new data released by the county. In many cases, that left only local radio for news and information.

According to Chris Helgren, the county’s emergency services manager, 54% of those lines were down “at a time when demand was the greatest,” meaning that SoCal alerts via cell phones and land lines, in many cases, did not reach residents.

“During disasters, it’s not uncommon to have lower success rates,” he said in a story in The Press Democrat. “You’re not going to have the same kind of numbers you would when the system is whole.” Logs detailing emergency communications during the first week of the firestorms ­ including alerts sent to residents, lists of 911 calls that poured into dispatchers and summaries of communications with first responders ­ were released Friday by Sonoma County.

Residents must register with the county to have SoCo Alerts sent to a mobile phone or by email and text message. Landline numbers are automatically entered into the database by the county.

Sonoma County Fire and Emergency Services has faced criticism for failing to notify residents of fast-moving fires, which killed 24 people and destroyed more than 5,130 homes in the county. Many residents claim their first warning came from neighbors or from the roar of gusting winds, while others learned of the danger from one of the only utilities available, with Internet and WiFi also down: AM/FM radio.

As Inside_Radio
 reported in October, “Cellphones and WiFi are down, so people are depending on good old-fashioned radio for this information,” said Larry Sharp, the GM and PD of local Wine Down Media, whose two stations remained on the air to get news and information to Sonoma residents. “A large portion of this county has Comcast and they are down so there is no TV, then no internet
and that pretty much leaves radio.”

In addition, Redwood Empire Stereocasters’ four-station FM cluster­AC KZST, smooth jazz KJZY, country “106.3 The Bull” KBBL and classic hits “102.7 The Wolf” KWVF­broadcast wall-to-wall local coverage, simulcasting across all four of its signals via AC KZST.

On the Radio Advertising Bureau’s “Radio_on_Main_Street_Podcast,” Michael O’Shea, president and CEO of Amaturo, located in Santa Rosa, CA, stressed how essential local radio was during the disaster: “In the time you need it the most, the handheld smart device, the iPad, the iPhone, the Droid, is useless. Every cell tower is either jammed or it’s burned, there is no cell service, you can’t stream any audio, your cable TV is out, your electricity is out, and you have no way to contact the world unless you have a battery-powered radio.”