While officials received a handful of complaints from sleeping residents (believing the situation was not serious enough to warrant a call), greater concerns were raised surrounding the inability for calls to reach a significant portion of the population.
Like most communities, local telephone company data is used for callouts. However, individuals having only cell phones or VoIP phones (with service not provided by the carrier) do not appear within this database and will not receive automated calls.
The good news? The escapees were apprehended a few hours later when a resident who had received the notification called police identifying the teens and reporting their whereabouts.
IMPLICATIONS
Several helpful observations can be made from this situation:
The need for clear policy.
Police officials had in place a clear policy for determining when the system should be used. While this did not deter some residents from complaining, officials' response to questions surrounding the notification were strong and its position was highly defensible.
The cell and VoIP phone issue is a common problem across the country, though the notification software is not the problem. Having incomplete data is the obstacle. Communities must have methods in place for citizens to sign up for notifications when they do not use a traditional land line.
This stuff works.
Despite the shortfalls, the threat in this situation was neutralized due to rapid police response and a citizen's receipt of an emergency notification call.
The situation in Ebensburg illustrates well that with the right policies, technology and data in place, emergency notification is a powerful tool for protecting and serving the public.
-LBB
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