JOSEPHINE COUNTY, Ore. – Josephine County is addressing the recent activation of its emergency alert system during a 911 outage.
Wednesday night, many cellular phone customers in Jackson and Josephine County received automated messages about a widespread, intermittent 911 outage.
The messages, which likely didn’t apply to everyone who got them, caused numerous people to test their ability to call 911, flooding the system with calls.
The day after the emergency alert was sent out, Josephine County said, “While it is not unusual for a courtesy message like this to go out through Citizen Alert, they are typically sent as non-emergency alerts; however, the April 20 messages were sent out as emergency alerts.”
“Alert and warning systems can be powerful and are designed to work fast,” said Emily Ring, Josephine County Emergency Management director. “These messages were sent out at a higher priority setting than similar messages typically would be. Users with a Citizen Alert account will rarely receive this ‘waterfall’ effect of notifications, but it is a function of the tool that can be requested by field or incident command.
“While unusual and potentially irritating, receivers in the public had an opportunity to see the potential usefulness and reach of their Citizen Alert system.”
The county said anyone who blocked the Citizen Alert phone number on April 20 is encouraged to re-signup for emergency notifications. Learn more at http://www.rvem.org/alerts.html
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