ENS system keeping county residents informed of emergencies

Since being installed last April, many Phillips County residents have signed up for the Phillips County Sheriffs Office’s Emergency Notification System (ENS) powered by AlertSense and the system has been put to the test a lot lately.

When the rubber finally met the road and the underpass connecting Central Avenue to Highway 2 in Malta was closed for construction, many people already knew about the inconvenience before driving upon it. Those folks “in the know” were alerted by the Phillips County Sheriff's Office's ENS, a web-based program that sends out automated calls, text messages and emails to those who have signed up for the free service.

“When the alert was sent for the closure of the underpass 1,288 calls were sent by both GIS phone subscription and public subscribers,” Phillips County Sheriff Scott Moran told the PCN. “(A total of) 421 answered calls, 754 no answer calls, and 66 public subscribers answered calls. There were also some failed calls due to disconnected phone numbers or change of address.”

The system is used on a daily basis to notify local responders such as Fire, EMS, and Law Enforcement, Sheriff Moran said. As part of the negotiated price for the system, it was agreed to by AlertSense that the county schools could be included as notification users under the Sheriff’s Office’s contract at no cost to them. The schools will be able to enter and manage their own groups for student and parent notifications of special events or emergencies.

Dodson Mayor Terri Cole recently found herself wishing more people knew about the local ENS program as she was going door-to-door telling her constituents that the town’s water was not operational. Mayor Cole said that the temperatures in Dodson peaked over 100-degrees on the day in question and at one of the town’s two wells a shut off breaker inside a metal box popped leading to the well shutting down. (The malfunction was attributed to the high temperatures which were over 160-degrees in the box and the problem has since been remedied.)

“It drained the tank and nobody knew it,” she said of the well turning off. “Someone called and asked about my water pressure. I checked it, and it was awful.”

Mayor Cole said that after it was discovered the breaker at the well had malfunctioned, a town employee worked to fix the issue and in the meantime, she ran around telling all those without landline telephones that the town was without water.

“It was so hot and dry and there was no water in town,” she said. “I went around town telling people not to use the water. I wanted to make sure all those people were informed about the water, but it took a lot of time to get to everyone. It would be great if everyone was getting notified with the alert system robo-calls. This emergency could have been something very tragic like a fire or something and I hope people will take the time to get themselves signed up with this free service.”

Sheriff Moran said that some in Dodson were alerted to the water issues as a total of 79 calls were sent out to Dodson residents, 40 were answered and 38 weren’t. In the event of an emergency, Phillips County Dispatch can mass notify residents or make notifications based on a selected area of impact, such as flooding, tornadoes, incidents involving hazardous materials release, wildfire etc. The ENS can also be used for non-emergency notifications such as road closures, power outages, or other disruptive, or important incidents within our communities.

If you have a listed home phone, your name, your address and home phone number are already entered through our local phone companies. However, if you have moved recently, have an unlisted home phone number, or solely rely on cellular service you will need to self-register your numbers.

This process is quick and easy: Just go to http://public.alertsense.com.

You will be given the options to receive alerts by home, cellular phones, and e-mail. You will also be able to sign up for your choice of specific weather alerts from the National Weather Service.