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Published Monday, May 25, 2009 in Local

'Reverse 911' would give warnings in emergencies

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Times-Herald

Coweta County is simply too big for a county-wide weather siren system to be effective, but public safety officials are working on plans to notify Cowetans of emergencies and severe weather.

Coweta Emergency Management Director Jay Jones hopes to place emergency sirens at locations in the county where crowds of people gather, and 911 Director Patricia Orr is exploring the possibility of implementing a "reverse 911" system.

The city of Newnan has emergency weather sirens operated by Newnan Utilities. But those sirens only have an effective range of one mile -- under perfect conditions, said Jones.

In a county of 443 square miles, a siren system that would reach everyone is impractical, said Dennis Hammond, Coweta's public safety director. However, there are some places where the sirens could be quite effective, such as the fairgrounds, Whitlock Park, the Hunter Complex, and some schools.

At large gatherings and sports events, no one is tuned into the radio or TV, and a coming storm might not be evident. The sirens would be a great way to give early notification to people at large gatherings.

"You want to give them that early notification, so you have time to get them off the fields and get them home," said Hammond. "Just in their car is not safe."

"People aren't necessarily at events like that looking at the sky. It may not be anything evident, but it is coming."

"That is what they are relying on us to do," Jones said. "That is what our job is, any way we can get that message out there to them."

A reverse 911 system is used to call people in the event of an emergency.

The systems can call up to 60,000 phone numbers in an hour, said Orr. Emergency officials would record a short message that people would hear when they answer the call. The system can call county-wide or only to homes in a specific area. "You can determine the parameters, by whatever the emergency might be," said Hammond. "It may be an emergency that might affect the entire county, or may be on the north end. You don't want to alarm people in Grantville, necessarily, for something that is happening around Exit 56."

The system wouldn't just be used for tornados, but any emergency.

All land line phone numbers in Coweta County would be automatically included. Cowetans would also be able to add their cell phone numbers, and choose to receive a text message alert instead of the recorded message. And with cell phones signed up for reverse 911, for instance, said Jones, "you may have a mother and father in Atlanta on a date, the kids are at home with the baby sitter, and a storm comes in. The storm is not affecting Atlanta, but they would get a notification of it."

Orr has tried out several of the many available systems, and has found one she really likes. All of the systems are Internet based. Some require a separate computer and phone lines, but the company she recommends "makes all the calls for you."

The cost would be approximately $52,000 a year, she said. Orr plans to ask for funding for the system in the 2010 budget. The 911 center is funded through a monthly-charge on every phone in the county, except for pay-as-you-go cell phones.

There should be enough money from the 911 fees to fund the reverse 911 system, Orr said -- but with the economy's recent downturn, 911 funding is down as people give up their land lines or reduce their number of cell phones.

"With the economy the way it is and as tight as we are, I don't know for sure that there will be funding available to do it this year," Hammond said.

The weather sirens cost money too, of course -- "anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000," Jones said.

"We are going to include some locations, probably, in the 2010 budget" request, Hammond said. "But the budgets are real tight this year, so we don't know if there is going to be funding available."

Cowetans who live near a fire station, though, already hear a siren when severe weather threatens. Firefighters at each station park an engine outside the station and sound the siren.

"That is something that has pretty much been in place since the fire department was founded in 1974," Jones said.

Years ago, the fire trucks went on a route, sounding the siren; but that wasn't very effective, Hammond said. "People hear the siren going by their house and then it is gone -- they think they're going on a call."

Jones is also pursuing grants to help buy weather radios to give out to residents who need them. Weather radios are a great thing to have, and all come with a battery backup. On alert mode, they spring to life when weather warnings go out in the area, or the radios can be set to provide continuous weather information.

"We're trying to find the most affordable ways to protect our citizens," Jones said. "That is our job as public safety, and we're just trying to utilize all the technology and resources that are out there available to us."

And all of us are pieces of the puzzle, too. "People that hear the siren, we hope would make a call to their neighbors," said Hammond. "Or say, I'm getting an alert on my radio, and become a network that way.

"People play a part in that. Not necessarily flooding the 911 center, but calling their friends and relatives," he said.

When it comes to notifying Cowetans about emergencies or coming tornados, Hammond said, "to be effective, you've got to have a combination of things, because no one system is going to be 100 percent."

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