Reverse 911

[tgace]

My dept has recently implemented a "reverse 911" system. Dispatch can send a recorded message to every phone in town, warning residents of activity in town or providing emergency info. Or they can select specific areas/streets in town. Anybody else using it?

[Badboys]

It's known as the Emergency Alert System here in Ohio. My county has just recently implemented the system and I think they said they could reach a couple thousand households within the first five minutes of a warning.

[Code3inKC]

My town just got it up and running last summer. After recieving about 5 test calls from the system it's finally working. Hopefully they don't ever need to use it but from what I hear in the case of an emergency they can contact the 40,000 residents in our town within 10 minutes. :eek:

[LPowell911]

We have used it for the past couple of years. It is a great tool to use. We have used it for missing children (with certain circumstances), barricaded subjects (public safety), and other items that deal with similar circumstances. Be aware of the area you are sending out the launch. If it is highly populated, that can get a little expensive. Also, make sure it is used as a tool, not just because an officer/deputy wants to send something out. We had one deputy who was investigating a cold property trespass/theft that occurred about 4 days prior to the investigation. He insisted that we do a reverse launch. One was done, not sure who was billed for this. Sure hope wasn't out of our 9-1-1 budget

[tgace]

We recently used it while we were searching an area for a home invasion suspect. Issues we came across (its first use) were people with cell phones as their home phone were not contacted, same with unlisted numbers. We also didnt account for the flood of 911 call backs.....

[willowdared]

We are supposed to be getting it soon...we are still trying to get set up to take cell phone calls directly.

[LPowell911]

We recently used it while we were searching an area for a home invasion suspect. Issues we came across (its first use) were people with cell phones as their home phone were not contacted, same with unlisted numbers. We also didnt account for the flood of 911 call backs.....

Our system will contact the non-published numbers. It will not contact cell phones or VOIP phones. I think they are working on VOIP if they are confirmed by the subscriber.

We also have an information line that we update at least once an hour. We include this number on the message going out on the reverse launch. This way, we are not bombarded with 9-1-1 calls. You are going to have the few who will call, but not as many. A couple hours after the event is over, this information line is updated that there are no incidents to report.

[SCSOMike]

i think this technology was supposed to coincide with the AMBER alert system nationwide, not sure how long it will take to get everyone on board with it though.

[LAURA911]

so does anyone regret getting this program? is it abused by the community?? our dept is thinking of getting it

[willowdared]

We just used it with great success in the fires that raged across most of our county.

Not only was it used for evacuation orders, they used it as a pre-evacuation warning, and for "do not use" for water issues after the fact.

[Boris18251]

We have used it for almost two years now, and after getting all the kinks worked out it works great.

As far as the issues tgace spoke of with cell phones, VOIP and unlisted numbers... we get an updated from Verizon (our E911 vendor in this state) every week that includes all the E911 records for the county including VOIP and unlisted numbers. When we launched the program, we also added an 'opt in' page on our website. This allows users to add their cell phone information to our database so they can be notified as well. Two things you might want to look in to.

Normally when we do a notificaion, we specifially state that we have provided all the information we have available, and please not to call unless they have further information. This cuts down quite a bit on people calling back.

All in all... no regrets. None of the systems are the 'be all, end all' of notifications, so will still have to go door to door in some cases... but it is definatly worth it.

[willowdared]

When we launched the program, we also added an 'opt in' page on our website. This allows users to add their cell phone information to our database so they can be notified as well. Two things you might want to look in to.

We have that option as well, and the site encourages the registration of VOIP accounts as well.