[EAS] Deja Vu: Boulder officials questioned over effectiveness of emergency notification system

[Bill Ruck]

Because I now do a lot of work in Part 90 Public Safety I've worked with 
many dispatch centers.  No dispatch center that I am aware of has "too 
many people".  Most dispatch centers are short several positions and 
make up for this with mandatory overtime which, in turn, burns out their 
staff.

 From that perspective I can understand why they don't want anything 
that can cause a flood of 911 calls.

 From the same perspective I learned that during one of the big fires 
people were calling 911 asking for the fire dept to come and open their 
garage doors because the power was out.  The callers were irate when 
told that the FD was busy putting out the fire and couldn't help them.

My recommendation is to understand the problem from a dispatch 
perspective.  Perhaps arrange to spend some time in your local dispatch 
center to learn their job.

In my misguided youth I dispatched.  To Teamsters.  The nice part of 
public safety dispatching is that you likely will not be warned "There 
may be an accident in the parking lot".

Bill Ruck
Curmudgeon
San Francisco

On 1/7/2022 9:21 AM, Sean Donelan wrote:
> . . .
> Lack of 911 inquiries does not mean an alert was exceptionally clear and 
> no one had questions. The lack of 911 calls in response to an alert, 
> often reflects the fact that few people received any alert. Cities with 
> experience try to redirect people with questions to call 211 or 311 
> instead. But 911 is a victim of its own success.
> 
> Is the trade off more deaths or more calls to 911 when choosing which 
> public alert and warning system to use?
>